Village hidden on the mouth of hell
by Waith Shadow
Summary: YAHF Xander and Cordelia find new costumes, and two leaf Shinobi come to Sunnyhell and things will never be the same. Chapter 1 Redone
1. Hallween Night

Ethan Rayne, worshipper of chaos, chuckled to himself as he opened a box in the back of his Halloween shop, these costumes were the true symbol of his skill as a manipulator, for he really should not have been able to get these. They came from Japan, prototypes for costumes from a comic due out next year, it was some sort of super powered ninja or something; this power was shore to add to the chaos, he had to get this one out even if he had to sell it at a loss, the chaos was just too good to pass up.

Xander Harris bit back a set rather nasty swear as the last gun was taken from the sale bin, his plan of being a GI had just gone up in smoke, shoulders slumping in defeat he spun around to look for Buffy and Willow when he saw it hanging on a manikin, the costume had a Tactical Vest over a dark blue uniform with a mask covering the face up to the nose a head band with the symbol of what look like a leaf was slung over the eye like an eye patch, figuring he might as well see what this costume was all about he grabbed the tag, it was in Japanese but someone had written the translation next to it, Kakashi Hatake, ninja rank: Jonin, price 10 dollars! This was great, a full costume for a great price, oh yes this was so going to be his.

Cordelia Chase walk in to the Ethan's in a foul mood, how could Party-town have given her rental to someone else, well she would not be shopping there anytime soon. As her keen buyers mind looked over the costumes until she saw one on a manikin with the big word "sale" on it, she went closer it was a mesh shirt and shorts with an orange mini-skirt, leg pads, a long tan trench coat, a purple wig with a head band around it, and a simple rope necklace. She had no idea why she liked this costume but she did, she looked at the tag: Name: Anko Mitarashi Rank: Tokubetsu Jonin, cool.

Hatake Kakashi's one visible eye took in the situation as he stood apparently at complete ease his hands his hands in his pockets and his shoulders slumped but in reality he was completely alert and scanning the area trying to evaluate the situation. Kakashi's last memory was of watching his former student Uzumaki Naruto leave with the Sannin Jiraiya on a two and a half year training trip. Now he was in the middle of some sort of town with mini-monsters attacking anything that moved.

Suddenly there was a shout in a language he could not understand and a girl came running up to him making him do a double take, her clothes were strait out of his beloved Icha Icha goodness maybe…. he shook the thought off this was not the time nor the place for those things, now has the time for finding out where he was and how he had gotten there and how to get back to Kohana. This girl would be the first step, if he could talk to her that was, to others this would have been a problem, but Kakashi put a hand up to his forehead protector and lifted to reveal his Sharingan. The sight of the red and black eye only drove her into more of a babble frenzy but with the speed of the Sharingan Kakashi was able to keep up as he coped and analyzed what she said and finally caught what she was saying as she started to run out of steam. "And you're not Xander, are you?"

"No my name is Kakashi I am no one of importance." Kakashi said using the age-old lie that helped his enemies underestimate him.

"Okay, Kakashi look something really weird and magic-y is going on here and you are not you, so we need to get out of here and find Buffy, Oh my god Buffy, where is she?" Kakashi realized that this girl was panicking and a little lost at what to do, but she had more of idea of what was going than he did and if the was going to get home then he was going to have to follow her and try to get her to calm down and tell him what was going on.

10 minutes later Kakashi was still in the dark about this but he had some idea what was going on here, some kind Genjutsu with a mind control jutsu to make the victims think they were the monsters they were turned into was the best guess. Which would explain why Willow didn't want him to kill the monsters, but some Narakumi no Jutsu (Demonic Illusion: Hell Viewing Technique) and some Taijutsu put them down for the count. Now though he was in a house with Willow and some rich airhead named Lady Summerland. As he stood guard at the front door, reading Icha Icha Paradises at the same time of course, Lady Summerland found a picture and stared at it for a long time, "This could be me," she said to Willow.

"It is you Buffy, can't you remember at all." Kakashi knew this would not end well, and he was right. "No I don't understand any of this. This is some other girl! I would never where this…this low apparel, and I don't like this place, and I don't like you, and I just what to go home!" said the airhead with a pout.

"You Are Home!" Kakashi rolled his eye as he turned the page, just as the glass broke apart as a monster's hand came through, Kakashi's moved swiftly, his hand went into his pouch pouting the book away and taking out a flash grenade which he tossed out the window and predictably the monster was scared off by the bang and the flash. Two minutes later he heard it, the sound of heavy combat coming from outside the house, without a second thought he bolted out the door

Mitarashi Anko smiled as she worked her way through the monsters around her, her first idea was that these were some of her old Sensei Orochimaru's experiments, the psycho did seem to make a lot of them, but right now stopping them and finding a way home was more important than what they were. Luckily they were all pretty weak and dumb but what they lacked in strength they made up for in numbers, she had already fought of about 20 there were hundreds more, right now she was fighting off 10 really ugly ones at the same time, suddenly a foot slammed into the one on her left as looking that way she saw Kakashi, she smiled, "_Nice of you to join the party Kakashi, any idea where we are?"_

"_No Anko but I might have fond a girl who seems to have some idea of what's going on Follow me."_ With that Kakashi went into a fast set of hand signs "Kirigakure no Jutsu" (Art of Hiding in the Mist) with that a dense fog covered the area hiding the monsters from view and with a pout on her face Anko sprinted after Kakashi, just when it was getting fun too.

Willow was not having a good night, first there was Buffy, she was right now cursing the fact that she had ever encouraged her to ware that costume, anything would be better than this, then there was Xander and Cordelia or Kakashi and Anko as they were calling themselves right now, they were so frustrating, Anko couldn't speak English for one and for another they had flatly refused to stay in the house where it was safe, the fact that they were safer on the move and that Kakashi and Anko could look after themselves did not cross her mind, so now they were following her from the ruff tops as she made her way to the school with Cordy caring Buffy.

Giles was taking the down time to reorganizes the library but the sounds of shouts and sirens was starting to make him nerves, something was wrong and in this town that would mean demon or magic but it was Halloween noting happened tonight, ever, suddenly Willow came through the wall like some kind of bloody ghost, scaring him half to death with her customary "Hi!" Before he could get over his shock the double doors flow open and Xander, Buffy, and Cordelia came in, there could not have been more of a difference in the three teens, for one all three's hair was different colors Xander's was grey, Buffy was now a brunet, and Cordelia now had purple hair. More than that their very stances were off, both Xander and Cordelia had adopted a stances reminiscent of hardened special ops members that he had met in Console HQ while his strong and confident slayer on the other hand was hiding like a scared child behind Cordelia, there was only one thing Giles could think of to sum up all these surprises, "B-bloody Hell!"

30 minutes later Giles was coming out of the book cage with some of his more ancient texts nursing a migraine, after working out that everyone had become there costume he had spent the next 15 minutes explaining in his broken and poor Japanese what magic was and how it was used to the two ninja, after which they had started to talk amongst themselves in a corner in rapped whispers that Giles could not have followed even if he had tried, while Lady Summerland as Buffy was calling herself now was off in her own little world looking in wonder at the, "Candles and Lamps that never burned out," as she called the lights. "Okay let's review," he said to Willow, "this problem is more wide spread than the four of you,"

Willow took this as an opportunity to start babbling, "Yes, it's horrible Giles and."

Thankfully she was cut off at that moment buy a loud cough from the corner. "Yo, we have a question;" Xander said, "over such a long distance wouldn't you need a conduit for the power, something to tie the power to the victim." In his younger years Giles would have hit himself for missing the obvious.

"Willow, where did you get your costumes?"

"Some new place…. Ethan's." Ones again Giles had to resist hitting himself this whole thing stunk of Ethan Rayne.

'If it is him I am going make him suffer for this.' Giles promised himself

Whatever Giles had been planning didn't happen however, for when they got to the costume shop Kakashi and Anko had taken the lead and had "interrogated" Ethan, a process that included some hallucinogenic technique, snakes, and pain, Giles was sure he could not have done it better.

The Next day dawned on the Harris and Chase homes to find Cordy and Xander in front of their respective mirrors, Cordy looking at her neck were an all to familiar mark was visible on her skin and Xander at his left eye, which was bright red, both could only think of one thing to say to this, "Oh crap!"


	2. Cordy's problem

**This is just a fan made story I am getting no money off this and don't have the amount of money to make taking me to court worth you time so DON'T please**

AN: This Chapter is short because of my computer trouble and the flu so sorry; the next few will be the same. As for the last I will fix it sooner or later.

_I AM NINJA_

_My Magic is Training…_

_My Body is Control…_

_My Strength is Adaptability…_

_My Weapons are Everything That Exists…_

(From NINJA: The shadow warrior)

12:00 PM

Cordelia finished off her tenth donga that day, 'okay,' she thought 'I have a problem.' It was official, part Anko was still in her head, not only had she had to search out every place that made donga in Sunnydale, there were four, but she had also worn her forehead protector, which like her curse mark was still real for some reason she could not begin to understand, the necklace, and the trench coat, she like the necklace, Anko's influence, and the trench coat look could be worked with but the headband had to go, until that is she found while she had no problem with it in her pocket she just could not through it away, Anko had worked so hard for it, and that underlined the real problem, Anko's memories and feelings had not left with her conciseness, Cordelia now new way to many ways to kill someone, what's more she looked at her life up to last night with new eyes, she now jugged her life by Anko's standards and what she saw filled her with shame and loathing. She had always lived with the curse of popularity, most girls like Harmony bathed in the light of being popular the so called Queen C had just been a pretty girl from a rich family who everyone wanted some of her money or her power. And the worst part was that Cordy knew it, she wasn't the dumb bimbo she acted like, she knew they were only after what she had and she still let them get close, fake love was better than no love, and her family had shown her very little, they never hit or hurt her but they never really had time for her, they were to busy. Then she found out abut what was out there in the darkness and she had just let the world go by shore she had driven over some vamps with her car but really what had she done when not forced to, nothing.

Anko was the same but also the opposite, like Cordelia she had had a lonely life, the first person to show any interest in her was Orochimaru and that had been a lie the whole time, but instead of felling sorry for herself Anko had overcome the hardships of her life to become a Tokubetsu Jonin Force Recon expert (A.N. I have no IDEA what Anko is a expert of but Recon seems like a good fit form what I have seen) she could survive just about anywhere, she could be sent on a mission with little or no Intel gather the need Intel then adapt to the situation at hand improvise with what she had on her and among her teammates then overcome any obstacle and complete the mission. She had only few friends but those she had were strong and liked her for who she was.

Two sets of memories, likes and dislikes were coming together and it was tearing her apart and the patented Cordy method of ignoring and burning through daddy's money wasn't working, but Anko's Ideas on coping weren't much better, the kunoichi had always been a loner not one to share here problems with other, a trait wich got worse after the hell that was learning from Orochimaru had only made it worse when she did have a problem she went to the Old Man, the Hokage had always helped befor his death, but now she had no one she was the only thing close to a leaf-nin…..

She stopped smaking her self on the head, Xander! He had dressed up as Kakashi, he would be going though what she was maybe they could work toghter and find out what was going on. With that she set out ninjia sinses trainned on finning Xander Harris.


	3. We are Shinobi

Disclaimer: I own not one thing in this story.

AN: Ha…ha…ha finally done after months of my life going down the drain I finally finished the one bright spot in my life, this chapter, I will try to be faster next time.

_Hope and pray that you'll never need me,_

_But rest assured I will not let you down._

_I'll walk beside you but you may not see me,_

_The strongest among you may not wear a crown._

_On that day when you need your brothers and sisters to care,_

_I'll be right here!_

_On that day when you don't have the strength for the burden you bear,_

_I'll be right here!_

_Citizen soldiers holding the light for the ones that we guide from the dark of despair._

From Citizen Soldier- 3 Doors Down

Xander stood in the exact same place he had been for the last three hours. After calming down from the fright of seeing the Sharningan in the mirror he had slipped his Forehead Protector over his eye and wondered the town until he had ended up here, Jessie's grave, though Jessie was not buried here he still felt closer to his childhood friend here, just like Kakashi felt closer to Obito at the KIA Memorial in Kohana. The lives and loss of the two friendships were totally different and yet the same, Obito had died in combat with the enemy in war, Jessie had been nothing but a innocent bystander in a war he didn't even know was going on, but they were also the same because Kakashi and Xander blamed themselves for the deaths of their friends, in Kakashi's case he had been the team lead, how proud he had been when Minato-Sensei, the soon to be Fourth Hokage told him of his promotion, and even more so when he had been put in charge of his the team after the Fourth had split off from the team to make a solo diversionary attack, and it had been his lack of teamwork that had lead to Obito's death when the Rin had been taken, if he just adapted, like Sensei had told to, things would have gone differently, he knew it and nothing would ever make him believe differently. Xander on the other hand had been slammed stake first into the vampire that had once been his brother in all but blood, and while Xander had long ago realized that that thing was no more Jessie than a rock was, but every night Xander looked for someway, anyway for him to have saved him from being turned, he had saved Buffy from death at the hands of the master after all, surely he could have done something for Jessie. But both of those events were in the past, and Xander now knew what he had to do to honor Jessie's death, he would use it to make him stronger, use it to drive him to protect the innocent from the things that were hiding in the darkness, and most importantly he would never abandon a friend, for he was a Shinobi now and in the world of Shinobi those that abandoned their missions were scum but those that abandoned there friends were worse than scum.

"Jessie man," he said moving for the first time in hours, his hands coming out of the pockets his right clutching knife he'd had from the last time he had patrolled with Buffy, not a kunai, all his had gone back to plastic, like every thing but his eye and forehead protector, and cut his thumb before letting a few drops of blood fall before the head stone. "I swear to you, they won't get away with it, I'll stop them, what happened to you will avenged and I'll fight to keep others from having there body be used as a mask for a monster to terrorizes and kill there friends and family, and know that no longer will evil freely use the darkness to stock and kill the innocent, from now on the they will learn to fear the darkness like their victims do, because in the darkness they will find the thing that evil fears the most, justice. You have my word as a Ninja." As he finished this speech he heard a sound, less than a whisper even, the soft sway of grass, so soft only someone trained in the art of covert ops would have notes, he didn't turn around, he didn't even flinch, "Cordelia." It wasn't a question.

"Xander," Cordelia Chase responded, she had called him Xander, not the usual Dork boy, which only confirmed what he already knew. Xander slowly turned and took in Cordelia's appearance, the mix of her own high fashion tastes and Anko's bad girl look. "I see some things were left behind last night for you too."

"You think!" She yelled at him pulling on her coaler reveling what appeared to be a tattoo on her neck though Xander knew it was something much more sinister.

"That's not good." Said Xander, far understating the situation, this could spell doom for the world.

"It's not good! That's an understatement Dork-boy!" she snapped at him, then she surprised him by closing her eyes and taking a few calming breathes, before continuing in a normal voice, "So what do we do now?"

"You're asking me?" to say he was shocked was like saying the Marianas Trench was deep he had to wonder just how much of Anko Cordilea had left in her head.

"Yea weird I know, but I have some very good reasons for it, Dork-boy," Cordy said. "One, we both know what will happen if my seal goes active," they both shuttered at the thought, "two what you just said is what I've been felling since I woke up this morning, last night made me stop playing my part in the show that is my life, to look inside, and what I saw I didn't like, I'm Cordelia Chase, the meanest girl in the history of Sunnydale High and I'm just the damsel in distress, I mean really I'm so much better than that, these things what to kill me and the rest of humanity, well its time for them to learn that they picket the wrong human to mess with. And three we're Shinobi now and you were Kakashi, a Jonin, While Anko was Tokubetsu Jonin, even tough the two of us are probably Genin at best there needs some command structure and that's the best I can come up with right now."

"Okay then, here's our next moves we'll go see what level we're really on and then we'll go see Ms. Calender and G-man, see if they know what is going on here." At this Cordy snapped to attention and gave him a perfect US Marine Corp salute, though the big dopey grin on her face ruined it somewhat.

Giles' apartment 4:00 pm

As Jenny Calendar sat on the couch watching her boyfriend Rupert Giles pace back and fourth in front of her she could swear see the hole he was making in the floor, she sympathized, she too was worried as one of the adults of the Scooby Gang, as the teens called it, she new something had to be wrong if Xander and Cordilia were calling them for help, of all the four teens in the Scooby gang these two needed the lest guidance from them, Xander for all his goofy antics was a Crusader heart, a knight of old who would do all that was necessary to save the day and would stand up for his friends no matter what came at him, Cordilia on the other hand was a part time member, she only really got involved when the danger started to close in. The fact that the two of them were asking to meet them, on a weekend no less was really worrying her to no end.

Rupert Giles was even more worried that Jenny, not only did this mean something could have gone wrong with the spell but in a way the whole mess was his fault, Ethan had come to Sunnydale because he was here, the maniac was a true fanatic, he didn't care about anything but watching the world burn, and had wanted to prove that it was impossible for Giles to turn over a new leaf, after all Rupert had done to get beyond his past, the evil he had done it had come back to bite him and hurt the young man he had long ago come to think of as a son and the young woman who, despite her rudeness he was starting to see as a daughter.

A nock at the door startled both of them, as Giles opened the door his fears were all but confirmed his fears Cordy, was wearing the coat and headband from her costume and looking around as if she were a commando on a mission, Xander on the other hand had the headband still slung over his eye like an eye patch and his demeanor was thoroughly laid back as if he had not a care in the world, but with his clinical mind and watcher trained eye, Giles was able to see the ruses, Xander was appearing calm not because he was but because he wanted to look that way, Kakashi had done the something last night while Giles had been talking to him, in truth that scared him more than the two looking like commandos, of all The Crowns finest that The Watcher's Council hired the most dangerous Rupert Giles had ever met came out of MI-5 and MI-6, and they could do that same thing.

"Yo G-Man, last night seems to have had some lasting effects." Xander stated in a laidback and upbeat voice. In shock Giles wordlessly invited them in. "We still have all the memories of Anko and Kakashi," Xander said as they sat down.

Cordilea continued, "And we still have these!" showing him a tattoo on her neck and Xander pulled up his headband to reveal that his usually brown eye was now red and had a vertical scar on the lid. This revelation was followed by a full two minuets of silence as the adults stared; Giles was the first to recover.

"We'll start looking for a way to reveres the spell immediately." Giles was surprised when this caused uproar among the teens.

"NO CHANCE IN HELL!"

"I don't think that's such a good idea!"

This stopped Giles cold; lucky Jenny managed to find her voice at that moment, "Why not?"

"Several reasons," Xander explained "One Magic and Chakra are different even if they are used in similar manners; Magic comes from power outside the body, channeled through the body or an object, like the statue last night, stored and fired at a target. Chakra comes from the body, inside the body there is two sources in the body, one is the power in every cell of the body and the other is spiritual energy gained from exercise and experience, when these are mixed they form chakra, my Sharingan and Cordy's Curse Seal are now drawing on our chakra networks, which is just as important to life as the blood stream, and I'm not talking the Chakra you know about, you could kill us if you remove them with out knowing what you are doing, and even if you do then the odds would be 50/50 that we would not live through it."

"Or you could take the memories and not the Seal, which would be worse, right now there only three things keeping it from activating, a tretment Anko resived to keep it dorment ,my own normally strong will, and Anko's memories of how to keep it from activating, if this thing activates I'll become a mindless sadistic killing machine that's as tuff as any demon and makes the worst vampire look like a sweet caring person."

"What do you mean Cordilea?"

It was Xander who answered, "That mark is a thing of pure evil, G-man, Made by Anko's sensei and one of the worst missing-nin in Konoha history, Orochimaru, he tricked Anko into helping him with his sadistic experiments to make perverse and evil Jutsu, and when he was found out and forced to flee Konoha for his life he, used her and nine others as human genii pigs for the seal, only Anko survived, when active the seal forcibly draws charka from the body increasing the users power but at the same time it eats away at a person personality, decreasing freewill while increasing the users rage and sadistic traits, one of my-Kakashi's, sorry, students, Sakura reported that she witnessed another one of his students, Sasuke torture an enemy ninja shortly after Orochimaru had sealed him, and Kakashi has nightmares about the way he found his last student Naruto after the counter seal that he had put on Sasuke failed and Sasuke defected to Orochimaru, for power."

The story stopped any plans the two adults had of trying to force the two to consent to trying a spell, the risks were to great, they were both also startled by the hatred and sadness in Xander's voice, and the corresponding look on Cordilea's face, they were stunned, both Xander and Cordy knew none of there new memories were real, but there feelings were real and as it was clear, they were going to need to work through these problems, but nether had ever been very forthcoming with problems before, and if they were Ninja at heart now then it was only going to get worse so prying there pain out of them was going to be even harder, so they would need to take it slow, best to take it slow and just start with the who, what, when, and were.

"Not to be rude, Xander but who are these Sakura, Sasuke, Naruto, and this Orochimaru, and were is Kohana?" Giles said hoping to see just who secretive the teens were now.

"Well G-man, the world of the Japanese Comic or Manga we dressed up as is not like this one Japanese is spoken in all the countries, these countries are named things like Land of Fire, Land of Lightning, Land of Waves, and so on, the lands are held together with little more than fear of each others armies, the main part of which are Shinobi, as such most countries have clans of ninja, most of the countries also have a hidden village, these villages were found when the ninja moved out of the cities and came together, the countries have a futile ruling system so and as a hidden village make up about 90% of the military power of any given country, they are pretty much independent as long as they support the Daimyo and wage war for him, most of the time the income for these communities comes from, well mercenary missions is the best word, these range from finding a lost cat to rescuing a town from a army, Konohagakure, The Village Hidden in the Leaves, or Kohona for short, has under the leadership of the five Fire Shadows or Hokage's become the largest and most powerful of the Hidden Villages, and as such the Land of Fire is the most powerful nation, in the 100 years before the last memories we have of that place, Kohona has produced many great Ninja. Three of the most revered are the Sannin, three shinobi of legendary mind, strength, and power all trained on the same team by the third Hokage, Tsunade, the greatest Medical-nin ever to come out of Kohona, granddaughter of the First Hokage, and now the Fifth Hokage, Jariya master of seal work, summing, sensei of my sensei, the Fourth Hokage, and writing legend," That brought a snort from Cordilea. Xander gave her a look, "Don't insult the Itcha-Itcha," Cordy just stuck out her tongue. "Anyway where was I, oh yaw, and Orochimaru," the hatred in his voice did not go unnoticed by the listeners, "The fallen Sannin, a monster of the first order, to date he has been reasonable for countless murders, organized an invasion of Kohana, and more evil experiments than you can even begin to imagine." Xander posed to breath, "Like the Third did with the Sannin, it is Standard Operating Procedure for newly graduated Genin, a rank like a cross between privet and second Lieutenant, to be grouped in to three man cells and assigned a Jonin, think Colonel, to train them as they are sent on missions, Sakura, Sasuke, Naruto are the cell I- Kakashi, trained, Sakura is the smartest graduate in her year in the academe, Sauske was the best in the year, a genius of the Uchiha clan, and only survivor of the massacre of that clan, and Naruto the number one unpredictable knuckleheaded ninja of Kohana. All of them have it in them to become great, so much so that Kakashi decided to enter them in the Chunnin exams, not because they were ready to make Chunnin, kind of like a Captain and a Sergeant combined, but the training would help them become better soldiers, but Orochimaru infiltrated the exams as part a plan to gain the Sharingan," he moved his hand to his headband indicating the eye underneath, " the Sharingan is one of the villages most powerful weapons, it allows a user to analyzes and learn any attack, it is a Keki genki, a bloodline limit, it is passed down through the DNA of a clan, in this case the Uchiha clan, my Sharingan was transplanted from a friend, as such it is always active and if used to much, well at best I'll fall unconscious from exposition, but for a Uchiha like Sauske there almost no side affects. Orochimaru has a jutsu that allows him to move from one body to another and his plan was to use Sauske as his next host and as such gain the Sharingan."

Cordilea took up the story from there, "He made his first move in the second exam, which Anko as a Tokubetsu Jonin, think Warrant Officer, was proctoring, he killed and assumed the identity of a young genin in the exam and then attacked Sauske to test him, I guess he found him worthy because he gave him the curse seal, after that, I-Anko found him and well the fight that followed was fast and brutal, he came out on top but had to hightail it out of there before the ANBU backup came."

Xander took back the rains of the story, " with Sauske marked he sat back and waited, meanwhile Kakashi sealed the seal with the Evil Sealing Method, but Sauske harbors a deep hatred for the man that Killed his clan and that undermined his will against the seal and the evil sealing would fail, as part of him wanted that power. But he also was Facing Gaara of the Desert, The Village Hidden in the Sand's most powerful weapon in the final exams that both he and Naruto made it to, Kakashi wasn't so worried about Naruto, he needs to work on the theory side of the work and the basics but that kid is an expert of getting out of tight spots, he's a real street fighter, his style relies on power and improvisation, he is the best and worst qualities of his parents mixed I swear. But Sauske is an expert of styles, he needs a technique to learn to be effective and that can be a problem when facing a living killing machine like Gaara was at the time, so Kakashi taught him the Chidori, Kakashi's original move, which only some one with the Shariningan can do as it takes almost instant reflexes to hit a target and not leave one's self open to a counter attack, but if pulled off correctly it can be a devastating strike on a target. With it he could fight Gaara and stand a chance of not dieing, but during the tournament that was the final test Orochimaru's forces and the Sand forces that Orochimaru had tricked into allying with him attacked."

Again Cordy took over the story. "The attacks started in both the arena and at the city's wall but the city's counter invasion plans worked like a charm and the civilians were safely evacuated to the bunkers before the counter attack decimated the enemy force."

"Meanwhile," Xander said, "Naruto, Sauske, and Sakura, along with two other Genin were trying to stop Gaara and his siblings, all of whom were extraordinary fighters. They managed to pull it off and Naruto managed to not only smash Gaara and himself at the same time, but get through to his human side by appalling to there shared history of being shunned by the villages, and showed the power of as Naruto calls it fighting for precise people. After the battle, Leaf and Sand singed a treaty that is quickly turning into one of the most reliable and strongest alliances in the world, meanwhile Kakashi thought every thing for his was going well, until the three of them got their first solo mission, on it they fought a ninja that from The Village Hidden in the Rain, armed with the Sword of Radian, think a cross between a lightsaber and a cattle prod, a formidable opponent, even for a Jonin like Kakashi, together using Chidori and Rasengan, a powerful technique that was made by the Fourth Hokage that Naruto learned from Jariya, I must say I still can't believe he worked it out in less than a month. But Sauske was wounded in the battle, this combined with his growing fear that Naruto was better than him, as the class genius he was not suppose to be below the dead last, and if he fell behind the dead last he would never be able to avenge his clan, this lead him to challenge Naruto to a duel. Naruto as his rival and friend agreed, but the anger and ruthlessness of Sauske quickly drove him over the edge, when Kakashi found them they were going at each other with Chidori and Rasingan, they could have killed each other with those two attacks. After stopping them Kakashi spoke to Sauske, telling him to give up his revenge seeking, to let go of the hate, I-he thought he had gotten through but when he returned from his mission he found Sauske had gone AWAL, Naruto and some of the other genin were sent after him, but after running into some of the psycho's creations, only Naruto was not wounded and able to fight Sauske, by the time Kakashi got there, they had beat each other to a bloody pulp and Sauske had left Naruto lying near death. Kakashi saw evidence indicating that Sauske had used Chidori on Naruto, after he had been told that move was for saving friends not killing them, after that Tsunade and Jariya felt that they should train Sakura and Naruto to find Sauske before three years was up and Orochmaru possessed Sauske.

Now that you know all that why don't you follow us and we'll show you two what we can do."

5:15 PM

Clearing 2 clicks west of Sunnydale

Ms. Calendar and Giles watched as Xander and Cordilea faced each other in fighting stances, suddenly they charged Cordy started with left hook, which Xander dodged and countered with a strike to her gut, and then Jenny couldn't follow a thing as the two traded blows at near super human speeds, one look at Giles told her that he could follow it ether. The ninjas staid locked in combat for about ten minutes ending with them both doing a flying summer salt away from each other. Xander smiled, "Well Cordy I think that's a good warm-up." The two adults were shocked, all of that had only been a warm-up!

"Yup!" Cordy shoot back very un-Cordelia looking goofy grin on her face, only to be replaced by a deadly looking grin as she sidled back into the her fighting stance.

"Ding." Xander drawled out imitating a bell.

And with that Cordelia struck her hands formed two signs that nether of the adults could place and her right arm shot out at Xander "**Sen'eijashu**," (Hidden Shadow Snake Hands) and three snakes flew from her hand at Xander, in response Xander leaped up and back dodging the snakes and landing a good 12 feet back at lest. Xander then went on the offincive he chucked three knives at her, Cordelia dodged them with out any real effert but Xander was already moving into his next strike, his hands moved forming more of the odd hand signs yelling out "**Suikōdan no Jutsu**," (Water Release: Water Shark Missile Technique) as he finished the creek behind him erupted as a shark made of water shoot out of and strait at Cordy who still dodging the knives didn't dodge in time and was hit by a fin knocking her back into a tree letting out a grunt. The struck Cordelia hardly seemed to slow down a she kicked of the tree, chucked a knife with string attached at Xanders feet and formed a set of hand signs yelling out "**Ryūka no Jutsu**" (Fire Release: Dragon Fire Technique), once she was done she brought her right hand up to her mouth and took a deep breath and blow a torrent of flame that engulfed Xander, along with every thing in a ten square foot radius, when the flame and smoke cleared Xander was nowhere to be seen, for the briefest of second Giles and Jenny believe that Xander may have been vaporized by the flames, but as Cordelia touched down on the ground a hand reached up from the soul and grabbed her foot "**Doton: Shinjū Zanshu no Jutsu**," (Earth Release: Inner Decapitation Technique) in the blink of an eye Cordelia was pulled into the ground up to her head and Xander was standing over her 'Well,' Giles thought, 'I guess it is over' just as what looked like Cordelia disappeared in a puff of smoke leaving a log in her place, Both of the adults were beyond stunned at this, but Xander was oddly calm as if he had been expecting this, just as Giles was getting his head around what he was getting his head around what he was seeing, the "nin-jutsus" as the teens had called them were as powerful in the own way as the most advanced magic's, and Xander and Cordy were using them in rapid succession, as he was marveling at this a knife flew from the trees behind Xander, hitting the teen squarely in the back with the force of 12 gage shotgun, Giles felt as if the knife had struck him as he watch his son in all but blood fall forward blood flying, only to see him disappear in a cloud of smoke as he hit the ground and be replaced by another log, but he had very little time for relief as Xander and Cordy exploded out of the tree Cordy had been hiding in, all he could see a flurry of punches, kicks and jabs that flew around the clearing, leaving dints and gashes in trees all over the field until they broke apart and started stocking each other in a long slow circle, it was then that Giles released that both were drenched in sweat and out of breath, suddenly the truth of the situation hit both adults, they had assumed that they were super human, like Buffy, as every move clearly super human but that all came from molding chakra to push themselves beyond the human limit but human muscle and chakra reserves could only take so much before giving out, and though both had the memories of high raking ninja they did not have the bodies and year of training, he was shore that some if not all of the moves that they had used would have normally been to advanced for a ninja of their levels, and they had only used them to show what the could do under extreme conditions. The problem was that both were competitive by nature, one only had to look at Xander's dealings with Angel and the way Cordelia acted with Buffy to see that, added to this the traits from the two Leaf ninja and they were more than likely to run themselves raged at lest trying to win this duel, on look at Jenny told him that she agreed, so he started forward. "Hmm Hmm, Okay I think that's good, I think we have an idea of what you two are capable of now, thank you."

The response was like throwing a switch they started, Xander sliding into a laid back "I'm ether board with this, to lazy to care, or to cool to care" look and Cordy grew a big grin like the fight had been the most fun she had ever had. "Ok-aye dok-key Giles"

"We do have one more thing to show you G-man" with that Xander produced another knife, where did he hide those things, and cut his thumb, mean while Cordy had bit her own thumb, followed by them doing a set of hand signs in perfect sync, then they slammed their palms to the ground, "**Kuchiyose no Jutsu"**(Summoning Technique) a symbol extended from there hand and suddenly a cloud of smoke filled the clearing, as it cleared a pack of dogs surrounded Xander and a giant blue snake was coiled beneath Cordelia who sat on top of it large head.

"Yo! The ninja dogs are here." Said a small pug dog, at that point Giles brain finally stopped firing on all cylinders and the most intelligent thing he could do was take off his glasses and clean the none existent smudges from them. Jenny had slightly more cylinders firing, "H-Hi."

"G-man, Ms. Calendar I like you to meet Pakkun," the pug raised his paw "Bull," the big bulldog Pakkun was sitting on nodded, "Shiba,"

"Hi."

"Bisuke,"

"Hello."

"Akino,"

"Hi."

"Guruko,"

"What's up!"

"Uuhei,"

"Hey,"

"And Urushi"

"Hey there."

"They are my ninja dogs, trackers and strike team if needed. Thanks guys I'll get you something special latter." With that the dogs diapered.

"And this big baby is one of my giant snakes, their big and scary" said Cody with that the snake too vanished just as Giles regained the brain power to fake an intelligent conversation, "So Cordelia, Xander what do you plan to do now?"

"Well G-man we were planning on training up, what we did there was good but Anko and Kakashi would have wiped the floor with us, so would most Chunnin, heck I know of Gennin that would have beaten us, but to do that were going to need some weapons and supplies from you."

"Of course what do you need?" With that the teens handed over two rather large lists of supplies.  
Oh and we need one more thing," Cordelia said her grin becoming insufferable, "We need some help telling Buffy and Willow on Monday so they don't freak out an do something stupid. Ok Bye!" With that the two newly minted shinobi jumped to a near buy branch and disappeared.

"Well," said Jenny after a minute, the Techno Pagan's face showing a good deal of dread, "they don't ask for much do they, just some supplies and the impossible." Her watcher boy friend could only nod, yes calming down Buffy and Willow would near impossible.

AN: I know the fight scene is weak but there is a reason for that, G-man and Jenny can't see that well at the speeds naruto world Shinobi usually go at it so don't fear as the story goes on the fight scenes will get better.


	4. Chapter 4

_I like pigs._

_Dogs look up to us._

_Cats look down on us._

_Pigs treat us as equals._

_**-Winston Churchill**_

By the dawn of the Monday after All Hallowed Eve whispers, barley even what could be call a rumor started to spread through the Demonic and Dark Arts community hidden in Sunnydale, it told of demons and vampires killed in ways the slayer would never dream up, one told of a demon corps found in the woods riddled with knives from a snare trap, others told of vampires following prey in a back alley only to be consumed by hug fire balls. Even those few who traded the tails had no idea just how much things had changed.

SUNNYDALE HIGH 7:00 AM

Cordelia Chase walked into the High School with a whole new attitude, her clothes were the first clue, before Halloween the so called Queen C had worn bright clothes that had shown her youth, good looks, and her money, the day after Halloween her clothes while still looking good had been a mismatch of that style and Anko's own. Now though her styles had blinded into a whole new look for her that oozed I'm rich and I'm scary so don't mess with me, she was wearing a bright red tank top patterned with snakes, a black miniskirt over a pair of biker shorts that were just barley visible, Anko's necklace, and the look was toped of with a high end black duster. The second clue was the way she was holding herself, Cordelia had always been confident, but now she walked as if nothing could stop her, it was so amazing what taking out a demon with out them even knowing that you were there could do to your confidents. The power of this new attitude made most of her classmates think that staying out of her way was a good idea, but Harmony Kendall, second-in-command of the Cordettes was not known for her brainpower, "Hi Cordelia!"

"Hello Harmony," Cordelia said in a slightly annoyed voice, Harmony still didn't get the hint, which she really should had no excuses for seeing as she had followed around Cordy like Todo to Dorothy since the first grade.

"So how was your weekend?" Harmony asked but without even waiting for an answer she started in again, "My was so great I found this great pair of shoes and the coolest jacket. Then I met this really hot guy, Rick, he's in college," okay strike one, Harmony may not have known the demon part but she knew Cordy had almost been killed by a crazy college fraternity/cult, "and were going out tonight so I need your help to find the right dress," a.k.a. the dress that would come of the fastest, unlike other girls with the "I'm fast" rep Harmony's reputation was deserved, strike two. "Oh that reminds me that I ran into that freak Willow on Sunday and she walked right into me, like hello she's the invisible one not me." Strike three, finally Cordelia snapped as the self revelations that had come after the weekend of soul searching that Halloween had caused, years of being alone even when surrounded by people, Anko's old feelings from her childhood, and the fact that Willow was Xander's friend, and the day after Halloween showed that Xander was closer to being her real friend than Harmony had ever been boiled over and Cordelia Chase grabbed the other girl by the neck and slammed her against the lockers with the speed of a snake strike, "Really Harmony, are you really that dumb or do you just not care, you know what happed to me two weeks ago and you still want to bring up College guys already, Even I'm nicer than that. And Willow is worth more than you, she has people who care about her, and she cares for them, which is more than I can say for you." With that Cordy drooped her and stoked off.

Meanwhile at another entrances to the school Xander Harris strode casually in, his Sharingan covered by a normal eye patch, he wasn't drawing to much attention, which might have had something to do the fact that he had traded in his hula shirt for a new attire of dark blue cargo pants, a shirt of the same color and a forest green jacket and the fact that he had his face hidden behind a book, a good old science fiction novel as he was to young to get a book like Itcha-Ircha and his girls would kill him if he ever read one anyway. But the fact that he was not drawing attention his way did not stop Larry Blaisdell from seeing him walk by, the bully smiled as he looked on to what he saw as an easy target, "Harris, what happened to the eye, someone find you wall your bodyguard was away?" Xander blinked and lifted his head from his book fixing Larry with the most board look one could have on his face. "Hmmm… You say something Larry?" the absolute lack of fear in this statement brook Larry, his fears and need to prove his manhood added to the anger at being brushed of like he was no threat, as he large fist pulled back and came forward enough force to put someone's lights out for a good ten minuets, so it was a world shattering surprise to all who witnessed it when Xander, with a speed few could follow, grabbed his wrist, yanked him around before slamming him into the lockers with the force of a jackhammer. "Don't Do That Again, Understand?" Larry couldn't speak right now so he just nodded, "Good, darn it I lost my place, and it was just getting to the good part," with that he strode off flipping his way through his book.

Buffy and Willow were chatting happily as they walked into the library to cheek in with Giles after the weekend, surprisingly they had not seen each other since Friday, and nether had seen Xander ether. It had been a light weekend for Buffy and she figured it would be a light week, at lest she did until she stepped into the library to find Giles sounded by some of his larger volumes and Ms. Calendars typing away on a nearby computer, that could mean only one thing, big trouble "What is it, Spike up to something or is it something new?"

"Oh Buffy, Willow," Giles said looking up from his current tome with a nervous smile, "This is nothing so onerous I ashore you, we are simply looking into the spell from Halloween, see about lingering effects," Willow, with her obsession with learning and stunted people skill excepted this as the truth, Buffy however didn't buy it, Giles was way to nervous when he said this and it was to early for this kind of research for a none major thing. "Why do you guys need to find out so bad that you would be this involved in just seeing about lingering effects this early?"

"Um well."

"That would be because some of us picked up some souvenirs?" said a female voice from behind them. Buffy and Willow jumped as Cordelia and Xander appeared behind them, Buffy was immediately on guard, it wasn't her slayer scenes going off, that really only worked on vampires, no it was the primal predatory instincts that came with the slayer package, both teens were screaming "Danger" to her. Willow on the other hand saw only her best friend with an eye patch on,

"OhmygodXanderwhathappeneddidithurtI'llfindaspellrightawaythatcanfixthis!"

"Willow breath," Xander said not looking up from his book, "it's not really what it looks like, and if we were to 'fix' it that would open up a whole new can of worms." As Xander said this he filed away the fact that Willow's first thought had been to use magic, for some reason it made him uneasy about that fact.

"Yes well," Giles interrupted, "as it turns out Cordelia and Xander though back in possession of their bodies, did not change all the way back, they still remember Anko and Kakashi's lives and have the retained some of the traits that if I understand right made them famous in the story. We have been looking into the history of the spell and we found some examples of something similar happenings, never to the existent that we see here, but that may have something to do with the uniqueness of the changes wrought on them by the spell, however we found no evidence of it being harmful, quite the opposite really the accounts indicate that some of the previous cases did great things with their knowledge" just then the warning bell range, "but this really is not the time to get into this conversation, so maybe we should do so after school, yes?" Buffy couldn't believe her ears, Xander and Cordelia could be in serious trouble and Giles was acting like it was no big deal.

"Cool G-man," came the board response from be from behind her, she turned around to see the that both teens were gone, how dare they act like this was no big deal.

"Buffy Willow we'll explain everything, just give us some time okay." Both girls sided and left, they would fix this.

3:30 pm Sunnydale High School

By the end of the day Buffy Summers and Willow Rosenberg were really starting to fear what had happened to Cordelia and Xander, Willow in particular was starting to freak out at some of the rumors she was hearing about Xander having a fight with Larry, that as far as she was concerned was a clear sign of possession, Xander couldn't stand up to a thug like Larry, it never crossed her mind that Xander had gone into fights with vampires bigger and meaner than Larry on almost a nightly bases and come out alive suggesting that his main problem was a lack of confidence, but that wasn't all he had walked through the halls with that book plastered to his face all day, he only had one eye for Pete's sake, that was dangerous, and he's whole attitude had changed, where Xander had been hyper, loud, and full of life, he was know laid back, calm, collected, and confident, it had best been summed up by one very out of date teacher, he was acting, "Hip and cool." What's more he and Cordelia were acting like friends, not close friend but he no longer made his I hate you jokes and when she called him Dork-boy it had more of a pet name sound, as treasurer of the We Hate Cordelia Club he should not be friends with her. Cordelia too had changed, the Cordettes had been gutted, Harmony, Gwen, and Aphrdiesia were all out, not only had Cordelia broken her friendship with them, she had some how managed to destroy their social standing in less than a day, it was wired to see the way Cordy treated her friends, in fact the only person besides Xander she seemed to be on friendly terms with was Arura, the only member of the Cordettes that seemed to like her for her. All this made Willow convinced something bad was happening.

Buffy entered the library a half-minute before Willow to the sight of Cordelia setting up a training dummy about four feet from her table, Buffy looked at her curiously, Cordelia sensing eyes on her looked up at her, Buffy noticed she was wearing the headband from her Halloween costume, and smiled, it was a big cheesy grin that looked out of place on the Queen C's face, "Hey Buffy!"

"Cordelia what's with that dummy?"

"Oh you'll see Buffy," the smile changed from cheesy to deadly that look even more out of place on her face. As they sat down Cordy pulled out a bag and pulled out of it a stick of food Buffy didn't recognize, and started to munching happily, as Ms. Calendar and Giles came in each baring a pizza in their arms.

"Where is Xander?" Jenny asked.

Nether Willow Buffy could answer that but Cordy smiled, "If Xander inherited as much of Kakashi's personality as I think he has he'll be late," with that she hurled her used stick at the dummy impaling it in the dummy's chest, 'Oh!' Buffy thought, 'so that's what the dummy is for.'

Five minutes latter

Buffy was starting to get freaked out, Xander still had yet to show up and Cordelia was still throwing used donga (she had finally asked what that stuff was) sticks into the training dummy, and what's more a pattern was starting to emerge, it was a little messy but Buffy could clearly see that she was starting to make the leaf symbol on her headband, as a slayer knife throwing was one of her enhanced abilities but even for her making a pattern was very difficult and Cordelia was doing it almost without thinking. Just as Buffy was starting to get agitated the doors opened and Xander strolled in, his eye patch replaced with his own headband, "Your Late, Mister!" Willow yelled.

"Oh, sorry, there was this crash in front of the AV lab and I needed to help-"

"HAHAHA, That's the best you got I was hoping that your Dork-boy brain could come up with a better excuse than Kakashi, but I guess I was hoping for too much, just sit down you knuckle head." Cordy interrupted and Xander grinned sheepishly and sat down near her and looked over at the dummy then to Cordy who smiled wickedly as he just chuckled and shook his head. Willow barley saw this however she was still shocked at Xander and Cordy's little game, Xander had lied about were he was, the fact that it was no ones life was on the line and it had been half joking didn't even register, what was worse was that Cordelia Chase had known it was going to happen and she hadn't, clearly Xander wasn't Xander any more.

"All right no that we are all here let us begin," Giles said going into Watcher modem "Jenny and I have spent the weekend looking into the spell that was used on your costumes, and what we have managed to find is that in some cases individuals retain some knowledge from their possession, usually if the person has some deep philosophical belief that coincides with the possessing personality the memories remain, we believe that the effects were magnified by the charka they both used. This is also why Xander and Cordelia have retained the Sharingan eye and the curse mark from their costume, though with the differences in their charka and the Historical sources doses make it impossible to do more than hypothesis. So now they seem to have the ability with some time and training to become the Ninja that Kakashi and Anko were last night."

When he was done the two teens that had been the last of the Scooby to learn of the full effect of Halloween sat in silence for several long moments until Buffy finally spoke, "So how do we fix this?" Giles closed his eyes for a moment and Jenny Calendar started to fix her hair, as much as they had tried to pretend that this would not happen they knew in it would, Buffy, and most likely Willow as well had latched onto the worst possibility and it was going to take a lot more than he had to convince them that this was not a bad thing, Giles opened his mouth to speak only to be cut of by Cordelia, "Why should we **fix** it, are you scared of having some competition out there for hunting demon heads?"

"Cordelia listen to yourself your talking about hunting demons like its fun, this is not you, you're still possessed!"

"No I was possessed, and besides the cool souvenirs it got me thinking, I am Cordelia Chase, the meanest girl in Sunnydale High history, I'm not some little cry Buffy," Buffy opened her mouth to snap back to the verbal jab but Cordelia kept going, "and all these demons and psycho's think I'm some kind of damsel in distress, well its time they learned they picked the wrong person to mess with. And were you even listening to Giles, if you mess with this you could kill us!"

"Okay every one calm down, its okay," Ms. Calendar's soothing voice cut in, "Cordelia, Buffy is just worried." Then she looked at Buffy, "and Buffy she's right, both the Sharingan and the curse mark Xander and Cordelia have inherited from Kakashi and Anko can be called medical conditions, with out the proper training on how suppress them they will die,"

"So why not just magic away these conditions?" Willow asked.

"NO!"

"Willow that's a really bad idea!"

Giles calmed the teen shinobi with a raised hand, before turning to Willow, "Willow as Xander told me Saturday, it would be dangerous to use magic on organs and marks so steeped in Chakra, even mixing historical Chakra and magic is difficult and takes more skill and finite control that anyone here possesses, but as we know only what Xander and Cordelia remember about the Chakra they use it would be all but impossible to return them to normal with out killing them, and scene as it is now they are in no danger, and their new skills will most surely be a great help us, I see no reason to risk it."

"Giles," the slayer said a slightly suspires look on her face, "what do you mean?"

"He means that that Dork-boy and I are going to get some shinobi weapons and go out and kill some demons!"

"But you not a slayer!"

"You right Buffy," Xander said trying to keep his voice calm and hopping that Buffy would stay calm, "but in our own way we can be just as deadly."

"Really!" Buffy looked at the two like they had just uttered the ultimate blasphemy, for as much as she claimed to hate being the Vampire Slayer, she loved the power and the superiority, Marrick, her first watcher and even to a lesser existent Giles had told her only she could fight demons, it meant she was special, now she was being told she wasn't so special, it an attack on her view of herself. "You want to prove it?"

"Buffy first off, we can be, we're not there quit yet," it was true, despite their knowledge advanced moves, if they were in Kohana at their current strength the two teens would have been sent after the Daimyo's wife's cat, and maybe a bandit or two but higher than low C rank missions would be to much for them, even the high C missions.

"So you were lying then." Buffy's tone was confrontational; this was not going to end well.

"He's not lying," Cordelia snapped, "but being a ninja and being a slayer are two different things, you powers make you super human, you don't have to work to be deadly and you can learn how to be more deadly in days instead of months or years, you have it handed to you, we on the other had are still normal humans, we have skills that allow us to operate at what would be super human levels but we have train and work at it, right now we have the knowledge and experience to use them but not the muscle memory and endurance for a long fight, and if you want a strait up Taijutsu fight and that would it would further increases our weakness and need to train."

"Tie-what?"

"Taijutsu," Giles answered, "is Japanese for body art or body skill, it is a generic term for unarmed combat, Cordelia is talking about fighting you only hand to hand."

"Okay" Buffy said with a edge to her voice, Xander and Giles both saw where this was going, and Giles made a move to speak before Xander's hand on his shoulder and the teen small shake of the head stopped him, "You can use any thing you what, and you can even make it two on one just to even the odds," Giles now saw why Xander had stopped him, Buffy would not stop unless she got her way, and Cordelia wasn't far behind on the anger scale the best way to deal with this would be to show Buffy what the other two teens could do now, to let them burn of there anger before they tried to kill each other.

"OK!" Cordy said, standing up.

"I'll do this but only if we replace all sharp objects with rubber training knives." Xander stated simply.

It took Giles five minuets to re-armed the three combatants; Buffy noted that both Cordelia and Xander were loaded down with more knives than a sushi chef. After that they faced each other in the middle of the library, and the match was on, Cordelia and Xander started by moving in a wide ark until they were flanking Buffy on ether side, now two-on-one odds are not as bad as they sound and Buffy as a Slayer knew how to turn the tables on such opponents, to win she had to take advantage of her own mobility and the superior coordination of one person, as unless they are perfectly trained to work as a team. However Buffy had underestimated her opponents, she was fighting two complete unknowns but all ready thought she'd be able to put them down in under a minute, she did not know that both Anko and Kakashi had resaved teamwork training when they were in the Academy and even more of it as the years went by, so while Xander and Cordelia were not a perfect team they were close, what's more she had no clue what their speed was far faster than hers, by using their speed the two could compensate for Buffy's superior strength, and because the only time she had had the chance to see ninjutsu and genjutsu she had been Lady Summerland, who had been to busy hiding and screaming to notice those were also completely unknown to her. This all add up to the mean that Buffy's attitude was her major weakness in this fight.

Buffy moved first fainting a punch towards Cordy then moved to roundhouse kick Xander in the back of the knee and by so doing putting him out of the fight for good, it came as a complete surprise when Cordy turned what she thought was a dodge into a to sweeping move that knocked her other leg from beneath her sending her crashing to the floor. Buffy was up in an instant only to be blocking blows from Xander who drove her back a few feet, it wasn't the power of the strikes it was the speed of them that drove her back, she just couldn't get the time to throw a punch or a kick, so she blocked, remembering what he said about their endurance being less than hers, if she could just hold on and what for them to tire out then she could win, the problem with that plan was Xander and Cordelia knew that better than she did and were not going to let go on that long. Xander herded her to the side of a table, and then disengaged, leaping back several feet and leaving Buffy facing off with Cordelia who was standing at the other end near the stairs. Cordelia then charged, Buffy charged back, some small part of the mind noted it as Cordelia made six hand signs in a row but she didn't think of it until Codelia yelled "_Bunshin no Jutsu"_ (Clone Technique) and suddenly where there was one Cordelia there was four, Buffy was stunned, as she reeled back the four Cordelias circled around her, Buffy didn't give them the chance to attack she struck out at the three she could still see only to touch air, the real Cordelia struck her from behind, disorientating her for a second. When she turned Cordy moved in punching to her right side, but she had overextended herself and Buffy seeing her opening delivered jab to Cordy's gut sending the other girl stumbling back, Buffy charged forward pressing her advantage. Cordelia was cursing herself for her mistake as she blocked Buffy's strikes, she had the speed to hold off Buffy but the hit had put her on the wrong footing and now Buffy was on the attack and she was on defense, she had to regain the edge, suddenly a blur announced Xander's return to the fight, in the chaotic storm punches Cordelia managed to do a back flip and land in a crouch her arm out stretched with a cry of, "_Sen'eijashu,_"(Hidden Shadow Snake Hands) with that the sleeve of her coat ruffled as something moved through them, Willow let out a gasp as snakes flew from her out stretched hand, they wrapped themselves around Buffy's legs yanking her off her feet, she landed hard on her face.

Buffy pulled her training knife out of her belt as she recaptured a fighting stance

"Buffy," came a clam voice from her left, she lashed out with the knife only to be stopped as Xander made eye contact and finished two hand signs, this was followed by a sudden up draft of leaves that made it impossible to see, a small part of her mind where had all these leaves come from come from but the majority of it was off, lost to all thought, to all reason. When Buffy's could see again, she was confused, Xander and Cordelia had disappeared, so she stared to prowl the bookshelves looking for them,

"Buffy," called a male she would known anywhere, but there was something wrong, there was to much pain in the voice, Angel was slumped in the shadows next to a bookshelf covered in blood, knives sticking out in several places, with out even passing to think how he was here in the middle of the afternoon Buffy raced for her boyfriend only to have an arrow come soaring out of nowhere and slam strait through the insouled vampire's chest, dusting him in an instant, Buffy felt her world shatter, she fell to her knees as her world fell apart, suddenly, the weapons and the dust vanished and Buffy felt two rubber blades at her throat, Xander and Cordy were standing over her knives at her neck, Xander looked sad, "I'm sorry Buffy but I had to find someway to stop you before our endurances ran out and Genjutsu was the best way to do that, nothing you saw was real, so don't worry." With that Giles called it a win for the shinobi and they broke apart.

Willow watched the seen in a stunned silence as the fight ended, first Xander had gone hand to hand with Buffy, then she was attacked by not one but four Cordys, add in the snakes and the seen with Buffy's little hypnosis secession and Willow was now convinced something really nasty had possessed these two, there was no other explanation, despite what the adult said, they had to be wrong there was no other possibility, this was just to strange not to be demony. She came out of her trance as the others returned to their seats, Giles started to speak " yes as you can see the variety of skills they now posses makes them most helpful to us. Xander, Cordelia, I have contacted some of my suppliers and the weapons and material you requested should arrive with in the week." Both teens nodded, "Well then I think that's it for now, Buffy cheek in after your portal please. Xander and Cordelia left first followed buy Buffy and Willow at a much slower pace. As the left the room Buffy looked over at Willow, "Well?"

"I don't know Buffy, all these things they can do now, the way they where acting it's like they aren't even Xander and Codelia any more, I know what Giles and Ms. Calendar said but it just doesn't make since, this could be bad Buffy."

"Right, so I'll follow them, you look into what might be going on here," with that the two friends left the hallway, as the turned the corner two figures milted out of the shadows, Cordelia looked at Xander, "_They didn't believe us,"_ she said in perfect Japanese.

"_No they didn't,"_ came the equally perfect response.

"_She's go to follow us, do we stop her or do we play with her?"_

"_We play with her, but no blood drawn, Understand?"_ At this Xander gave her a glare, Cordy pouted but nodded, with that they disappeared.

A.N. So how was this chapter? This chapter owes a lot to NightHunterMGS's story, 31 Days of Xanderween Story 21: Copycat Xander, if you have not read it do, it is a great set of stories, though the idea for this story came to me before Copycat Xander the story really helped me think about the way Xander and Cordy should act in the story and made it from some half made idea to a real story. I have a question for all of you, should there be more ninja left out there from Halloween, both good and bad, and if so who?


	5. Truth and Lies

A.N. Here at last is my next Chapter. Thank you to all of you that are reading this story if you like what you read then tell me, the more detailed you review the better. Chi Vayne thank you for your input, I'm sorry if Buffy seems a little excessive, the way I see it that Buffy jumps to the worst conclusion and has to be shown that its not so bad, and that after S3 nothing can convince her, if you like Faith then you like what I have planned for her.

_All warfare is based on deception._

- Sun Tzu, _The Art Of War_

Buffy's new job of tailing the two teen ninja lasted as many days, her first night on the job she had followed Cordelia to the Bronze in full spy mode, only to have her whip around as she followed her towards the bathroom and threw a knife, which just barley missed her face before impaling itself in the wall behind her, she was into her fighting stance in less than a moment only to be surprised when instead of coping her Cordy just stood there shaking her head and chuckling, "Buffy if I had wanted you dead, I would have done it two hours ago before you followed me into that tea shop, by the way which tea set should I buy, the black old fashioned one or the new aged?"

The fact that the other girl knew when she had started tailing her astounded Buffy but her anger over road her shock, "So then why did you just throw a knife at me?"

"Oh please if I had been aiming at you you'd be dead, I was aiming for the fly."

"What fly?"

Instead of answering, Cordelia walked over to the wall and yanked out the knife before showing it to Buffy; there were indeed the guts of a fly covering the Blade.

"Oh."

With that Cordelia walked off leaving Buffy flabbergasted.

On day two, Buffy decided to follow Xander to a cemetery after school, 'what is he doing here?' It was to early for patrol and every ritual she knew of had to be done at night, then Xander stopped at a grave, she hid in the bushes and watched, noting that the name, Jesse McNally, she knew that name, Jesse was Xander and Willow's childhood friend, and he had been the first person in Sunnydale she had failed to protect, she had lost people before and since but something about Jesse's death hit her hard, she had just been working her way into the hearts of those who would become the Scooby gang when Darla had captured him, originality for food but after a they figured out she was his friend they had used him as bait by turning him, he later was dusted during the Harvest, even after almost a year failing to save him still hurt. Suppressing the dark memories and settled down to watch Xander stand there, part of her felt horrible for spying on Xander as he mourned his best friend, but another part felt that it was for his own good, she need to see what if anything was possessing him. By 4:30 she was straining to concentrate, by 6:00 she was starting to get really annoyed, how long was he going to stand there, at 6:30 the sun started to sink blow the horizon when an idea hit her like a bolt of lightning 'No, he couldn't have!" braking cover she sprinted to the figure standing by the grave, only to find a scarecrow, Xander had been gone for God only knew how long and she had been watching the whole time, she yanked the scarecrow up and chucked it into the woods, fifty feet away, fuming she headed off to find a vampire, she need to slay something.

Less than an hour latter Buffy patrolled along the roofs of Sunnydale deep in thought, following Cordelia and Xander was clearly going to get her nowhere, they seemed to know when she was tailing them, as she walked a part of her brain she tried to suppress the fear of what had happened, both had known she was following her, they could have killed her anytime, their sparing match, Cordy's blades, and Xander's little scarecrow stunt had shown her that. But even as she visions of her death at their hands filled her mind she couldn't help but think if they wanted her dead she'd be dead by now, her idea of them being possessed by demons trying to lull her into a false since of security before killing her had been weak when she thought it up but now it was a joke, and while Buffy may have had low grades in class but she was by no means dumb, that left the idea that they needed her alive for some reason, but what, some evil spell, why not just lock her up in some basement if that was the case? All in all Buffy's reasons for suspicion were running short as she came up to a ledge over looking a park, and lost all of her worry about Cordelia and Xander. There in the park stood Angel, but he was not alone, a woman in a white old fashion gown was talking to him, and standing close to him, suggestively close to him, pain and anger stabbed at her heart. The seen lasted but a moment more as the woman moved on and away, Angel leaving in the opposite direction, Buffy just stared for a few more moments before leaving her self, trying to keep the tears from her eyes.

SUNNYDALE HIGH SCHOOL 8:40 AM

The next morning Buffy and Willow were walking out of class Willow's last note was about if the woman she had seen Angel with a vampire. "I don't think so," she said, "they seemed pretty chummy."  
"Who seemed chummy?" Xander said coming up behind them

"Angel and a girl." Willow said, apparently gossip was all she needed to forget that she had been barley talking to Xander since Halloween.

"Willow, do we have to be in total share mode?"

"Hey its if Angel is doing something wrong I want to know," what would have once been a flippant remark was now real worry, as his new ninja paranoia and general dislike of Angel had merged, Angel was an ally, but today's allies could always be tomorrow enemies, what really had him worried was that Angel had his soul put back in, if it could be put in it could be taken out.

Buffy glared at him.

"Hay I know what you need. Crazed dance party at the Bronze." Xander said.

"Hmm."

"Calm dance party at the Bronze."

"Hmm"

"Mopping at the Bronze."

"I'd suggest a box of Oreos dunked in apple juice but maybe she over that faze." Said a new voice.

"Ford!" Buffy said her mood changing in an instant; she then introduced Billy Fordham, a friend from Hiemrey, before the two other teens new what was going on they were all going to the Bronze.

BRONZE 7:30 PM

That night Cordelia joined them at the pool table. Ford seemed nice, seemed being the important word in that statement, he was friendly to them and Xander could tell Willow was already looking at him as a new friend, but the two Shinobi were not so easily fooled, he was too nice, like someone trying to sell you a bucket of air and planning to keep the bucket, what's more he was avoiding questions about himself, oh he'd talk about when he and Buffy were in school together but every time ether of the shinobi tried to steer the conversation to what he had been doing in the last year he would dodge the question and bring up some story about Buffy to cover it. He was just finishing one when Buffy walked up on them.

"Buffy," Willow said with a laugh in her voice, "Ford was just telling us about the ninth grade beauty contest, and the swimsuit competition."

"FORD!" Buffy said in embarrassment, "Stop that, the more people you tell the more people I have to kill!"

"You can't touch me Summers I know all your darkest secrets," Ford said, with flirtatious sarcasm, Xander, who a week ago would have made a wise crack at this just shard look with Cordelia Buffy oblivious to the two ninja behind her said, "I'm going to get a drink, Ford try not to talk." With that she headed to the bar, were she meet up with Angel, back at the pool table Willow noticed Ford staring and followed his gaze, "That's Angel." "He's Buffy's beau," Xander said, the sarcasm and disapproval evident in his voice, "her special friend."

"He's not in school, right? I mean he looks older than her."

"Your not wrong." Xander said.

Meanwhile Buffy and Angel conversation had not gone well, Buffy was storming back to the pool table, Cordelia summed the seen up for every one, "UH-OH trouble in paradise."

"Didn't want that soda after all?" asked Ford as Buffy walked up to him.  
"Not thirsty," came the reply, tension was evident in her voice.

Willow, well known to be lacking in social graces decided now was a good time to prove it, "Hey, Angel."

"Hi" Ford said awkwardly

"This is Ford." Said Buffy very quickly, "We went to school together in L.A."

The two shock hands, "Cold hands," the younger one noted

"Your not wrong," Xander said, earning a glair from Buffy.

"So you're here visiting Buffy?" Angel asked just a touch of cold minces in his voice

"No I'm actually here to stay," Ford responded, "just moved down."

Angel narrowed his eyes and was about to say something when Willow ether still oblivious to the tension in the conversation or trying in her own naive but loveable way to calm everyone down interrupted, "Hey Angel, do you want to play?"

"Y'know, it's really crowded in here tonight," Buffy said, turning to Ford, "Um… I'm a little hot. You wanna take a walk?"

"Um, sure! That would be great."

"Good night," Angel whispered as Ford past.

"Talk care." Came the response as the two teens disappeared into the crowed

"Once more with tension" Xander said

"He just moved here?" Angel asked his face pensive

"Yeah" Xander and Cordelia said together, Xander continued, "and before you ask, Deadboy, yes, he shore dose move fast."

"Yep." Cordelia agreed.

Willow who was apparently still trying to make everyone feel better, "Well Angel," she said in a small voice, "we could still play." She looked up only to find that Angel had vanished, she somehow concluded that this was Xander's fault. "See you made him do that thing were he's…" her voice trailed of as she round on Xander, only to find that both he and Cordelia where gone as well, "gone, huh?"

Meanwhile outside Buffy and Ford were walking down the alley, Buffy was trying to explain what was between Angel and her to Ford, "Could we lay off the tough questions for a while?" she asked at last.

"Sorry, So! What else do you do for fun around here?"

Just then the sound of struggling came from behind the dumpsters Buffy instinctively tense up, stretching out with her slayer senses she confirmed what she already knew, a vampire and his victim were around that bend, her mind racing she looked at Ford "Um, my purse. I-I, I left my purse at the Bronze. Uh, could you get it for me?" She said in a rush.

"Uh, okay," he said in a slightly confused voice.

"Good, thanks! Run!" she watched as he turned and started to jog away, then she turned and ran around the bend. She just barley managed to get the vampire of the woman he had been attacking. The fight was fast and brutal Buffy and the vampire trading superhuman blows at high speed, Buffy just barley managed to dodge a blow that sent a trashcan flying into a stack of crates on the other side of the alley, using his momentum against him Buffy grabbed him and sent him flying into the pavement, he recovered as only a vampire could getting up and sticking back at her with inhuman speed and took a swing at her, she ducked and landed a kick to his face. The vampire then tried hit her again Buffy caught this punch and landed on of her own, again to the face, this one did the job, stunning the vampire while she pulled out a stake and delivered the kill blow, as the ashes settled down she heard a voice, "What's going on."

Buffy's heart stopped, she spun around, at the corner of the alley stood Ford. "Um" she stammered trying to come up with a dissent excuse, "uh, there was a, a cat. A cat here, and, um, then there was a-another cat... and they fought. The cats. And ... Then they left."

"Oh. I thought you were slaying a Vampire." He said as if was talking about the rain.

"What? What-ing a what!" Buffy managed ask through her shock.

"I know, Buffy. You don't have to lie. I-I've been trying to figure out the right time to, to tell you. I know you're the Slayer." Ford said, living Buffy floored by the statement, as she and Ford left he told her all about how he had found out about her being the Slayer just before she had been forced out of Hemrey High school, nether looked up so nether noticed the two figures on the roof that appeared for just a moment as they moved from roof top to roof top following the two teens.

CLEARING 2 CLICKS WEST OF SUNNYDALE (DESICNATION SHINOBI TRANING AREA 1) 6:30 A.M.

Cordelia worked her way through her morning Kata, like the Japanese Martial Arts of this world the styles of Taijutsu in the world of Naruto had sets of moves that were practice alone to work on from, right now she was doing them on the water of the creek Xander not 10 feet from her going doing the same. While not a major river the creek was knee deep and they were currently using their chakra to allow them to stand on the water while doing them. This technique was the next level up after water walking, and the reason they were doing this was the same Kakashi given had given Naruto when he had handed his training over to Ebisu during the break between the second and third exams, the fundamentals were well fundamental, and they needed to work on the fundamentals, as any skilled expert will tell you there is a difference between theoretical knowledge and actual practical skill, Both Teens knew in perfect detail how to do any move their corresponding shinobi had known, which was why they were able to perform nature transformation moves like the ones they had used on each other when sparing in front of Giles and Ms. Calendar, but they had never actuality done them, which meant that they had trouble with not only their stamina but also their chakra control, as Xander was positive Ebisu had had to explain to Naruto after Kakashi had left them to their work, chakra had to be build up their chakra then mold it through the hand seals into the need form and nature, Team Kakashi was a prime example of the levels of chakra control, Sakura had the lowest of the three Genin in terms of stamina but her perfection at building up Chakra meant that she had no problem doing jutus as she wasted none of her chakra, it was also why Kakashi felt that she would make a great medical-nin when she had told him about becoming one, Sasuke was not as good at building up chakra but he his remarkably strong ability to mold that chakra aloud him to come up with the same results and with his reserves he could better afford to waist that Chakra, Naruto was however horrible at both building chakra and manipulating it, meaning he was wasting chakra in both stages as well as getting sub pare results, the only saving grace for him was his own almost super human chakra reserves backed up with the Fox's Chakra, even after his training he with Ebisu, and then Jiraiya he was still poor at it though much better than before. For Cordelia and Xander the problem was even worse as they were somewhere between Sauske and Naruto in control and genetics and lack of long term training left them with lower chakra reserves than those two, so they started with the basics, they had started with tree climbing then moved on to water walking and now this, water walking required one to concentrate their chakra at the points of contact and maintain a flow of chakra to keep your footing but with the movement of the water one had to constantly change the flow of chakra to maintain the solid footing, doing Kata on the water increased the difficulty by increasing the movement of a person, shifting the body weight and there by further increasing the need to change the chakra flow and also forcing the person to concentrate on the form and movements in the Kata. As the two teen ninja finished up Xander spoke, "So what did you find out about that bomb shelter?" After following them two Buffy's house they had continued to follow Ford until he lead them to where he aspired to be staying an old bomb shelter that seemed to have been turned into a privet club.

"Well," Cordelia began, now that she had Anko memories she now knew how to work the Sunnydale gossip chain into a half descent information source, which meant that if it was none cultic she could find out about it. "It's called the Sunset Club, I managed to conform what we knew already, it's a new local Goth hang out, but some of the stories say it is actually a club for a subgroup in the Goth community, a bunch of geeks who think Vampirism is cool."

"So the question is why is Ford, Bestest Friend of the Slayer is hanging out with a bunch of vampire wannabes?"

"That's the question, Dork Boy." With that the two headed of for school.

OUTSIDE THE SUNSET CLUB 6:30 PM

Cordelia and Xander lay motionless on the roof overlooking the door to the Sunset Club they had confirmed that it was indeed a vampire wannabe club and now that Ford was with Buffy they could go in and get some intelligence on what he was planning, just as they were about to move when two figures walked down the alleyway, one was a tall, deathly pale dark haired man the other was a medium build 16 year girl of average build with red hair wearing a bright striped shirt, Angel and Willow.

Cordelia was the first to speak, "Oh great, isn't that always just the way, just when you are about run an operation a pair of amateurs just walks on in blows the mission all to hell."

"Calm down Cordelia they haven't blown it yet," Xander said, though he didn't sound like he meant what he said.

Meanwhile Willow was explaining what she had found to Angel what she had found on the on the Internet. "The only thing I could track down was this address, The Sunset Club, still didn't find anything incriminating."

"He leaves no paper trail, no records, that's incriminating enough." Angel said

"Ya, Dead Boy's right Willow." Said a voice behind them, they world around, Xander and Cordelia were standing there. Angel was unnerved by the teens sudden appearance, he had been trained to be constantly vigilant and even he had not noticed their approach, it was at that moment that 271 year old master vampire started to truly understand what the two teens had become, Willow on the other hand responded not to the suddenness of there appearance but to the fact that Xander had vanished after school and had barely spoken to her that day. "Where have you been Mister, I've been looking for you, I looked up Ford on the internet and there's like nothing on him, and you just gave me the cold shoulder all day, and, and," Xander held up his hand silencing Willow before she could start an anger induced babble-fest. "Willow I've been out here all afternoon, and I wasn't hanging with you to day only because Cordelia and I had to plan this mission." He said, failing the reasons for her anger away under the same folder in his mind as the magic solution from three days earlier.

"What mission?" Willow asked in confusion.

"Well it was obvious that he was hiding something last night," Cordelia said, "so when he left we followed him here and over the last 20 hours we've been looking into this place and what we found here only confirms that he is hiding something."

"It was obvious?" Willow asked in a small and hurt voice.

"Don't worry Willow it was obvious to us, Kakashi and Anko had special training in intelligence gathering and interrogation, so we know when someone is hiding something." Xander said, meanwhile Angel, impatient to find out just what said teen was hiding, knocked on the door. "Were friends of Ford," he said as the doorman opened the window, as the door bolts clanked and the door opened the two ninja put up there hinge, Cordelia adopting a look including dyed black hair heavy eyeliner, black nail polish, and her trench coat some how became even darker, Xander now had spiky hair, black nail polish, black combat boots, and even more black clothing. As the doorman opened the door and they made their way through the next door, Xander and Cordelia noted that this door had been modified, the inner knob had be removed, meanwhile the Willow were taken aback by what she saw, a dark Victorian looking room lit by fake torches, coffins were everywhere, people were standing in them, others were dressed like an old movie Dracula as they chatted unconcernedly. Willow was suddenly very aware of the fact that Xander and Cordelia now looked like Goths and Angels dark brooding clothing also allowed him to blend, but what she was most aware of was the fact that the fact that she was wearing a brightly colored stripped shirt, "Boy I blend right in." Angel on the other had surveyed the seen before turning to them, "Lets look around. You guys check out down stairs."

" Yes Lord Hokage." Xander said Willow missed the reference but caught the sarcasm. "I trust you've noticed the theme here?" Xander continued after a moment, leaning close to Willow as they descended the stairs.

"As in 'Vampires Yay!'"

"That's the one. We where going to tell you about that but Angel's little play changed the game plan." As they reached the floor the two ninja moved away from Willow, not far enough to put her in danger but just far enough that one could think they were in different groups. As Willow wondered a young woman came up behind her "You're a Newbie, I can tell."

"Oh no I come here all the time." Willow said in a flurry.

"Don't be ashamed! It's cool that you're open to it. We welcome anyone who's interested in the Lonely Ones." The girl said, nether noticed the two shinobi or Angel as they closed on them.

"Lonely Ones?" Was Willows confused response.

"Vampires." Angel said without preamble.

"Oh!" Said Xander as he and Cordy moved into their rolls, "We don't call them that, we call them the Dark Ones, the dangerous predators, the Strong and Deadly Ones."

"So many people have that misconception." The girl began, "But they who walk with the night are not interested in harming anyone. They are creatures above us. Exalted!" Cordy shared a look, this was way above vamps were cool, this was vamps are gods, this could be worse than they thought. Just as they were going to pump the girl for information Angel open his mouth.

"You're a fool." He said bluntly, if looks could kill Angel would have been ripped apart by the ones that the two shinobi now sent him.

"You don't have to be so confrontational about it. Other viewpoints than yours may be valid, you know." The girl said in a hurt voice before turning to leave.

"Nice meeting you." Willow called after her.

"You really are a people person," Xander said, beside him Cordelia seethed, too angry to speak.

"Now nobody's going to talk to us," Willow pointed out.

"I've seen enough." Angel said, anger and disgust in his voice. "I've seen this type before. I mean, they're children making up bedtime stories of friendly vampires to comfort themselves in the dark."

"Is that so bad?" Willow asked, who unlike the two shinobi didn't see the harm in it "I mean, the dark can get pretty dark. Sometimes you need a story"

"These people don't know anything about vampires." Angel countered "What they are, how they live, how they dress..." just then a young man in the very same cloths as Angel walked down the stars.

"You were saying Angel," said Cordelia as Xander snickered behind her, without waiting for a response she continued, "Well we can't learn anything now, lets get out of here." With that they headed out of the old bunker.

As they made it back to the alley Angel was struck by a feeling he had never felt before, the Killing Intent of two ninja, it was unlike any physic attack he had ever felt, it was a or primal and powerful assault, and all the more terrible for it, visions of his death flooded into his mind as he fell to his knees. Willow watched as Angel fall she tried to help him but Xander grabbed her arm with an iron grip, holding her tight, out of the corner of her eye Willow saw Cordelia bit her thumb smeared the blood on her other palm, then she went through the had seals that Willow now connected to when they did a spell, the fact that this was not magic was something she still had not excepted, as she finished she slammed her bloody palm on the ground "Kuchiyose no Jutsu," (Summoning Technique) she yelled as her hand hit pavement a seal appeared under her hand followed by cloud of smoke that obscured her from view, as the smoke cleared Willow saw a hug snake, at least the size of an anaconda sprang at Angel raping him in a tight grip, now vampires do not need to breath and have no heart beat, the demon in possession of the body forces blood to flow though their veins a with magical force using magic and the vital material, oxygen, nutrients, and the like stolen from the blood of mortals to keep the dead flesh animated and to provide the super human power they possessed, but the body was still human and crushing the rib cage still immobilized them with pain, a fact which Angel was learning at that moment, then as suddenly as it had attacked the snake relented, commanded silently to loosen up by its mistress, as the snake loused its grip Cordelia stalked closer to him, her walk was that of a someone who was both incredibly sexy and deadly, she bent down over the fallen vampire, leaning close she said in a deadly voice, "If you ever let your emotions ruin a mission again I'll kill you."

"That snake might have been a little much but the point Cordy is trying to make is the right one Angel, we already knew all of that, except for the vampire is god thing, if you had asked we would have told you, we went in there to find out why is Ford, Bestest Friend of the Slayer is hanging out with a bunch of vampire wannabes, and your little stunt ruined any chance of finding out what he was planning, Buffy's life may depend on how much we know and when, by telling that stupid blond just how stupid he was you may have just put Buffy's life in danger, you say you love her but you may have just signed her death order, think about that." With that the snake vanished in a puff of smoke and the two shinobi disappeared into the night with a speed and grease beyond that of even a master vampire, leaving Angel with the realization of just what his mistake could do and Willow shocked at the brutality of what had just happened.

1630 REVELLO DRIVE 7:00 PM

"I'm talking about the people I trust. Who's Drusilla?" Buffy snapped at Angel as she glared at him from other side of the living room, Angel lowered his eyes in shame, "And don't lie to me. I'm tired of it."

"Some lies are necessary."

"For what?"

"Sometimes the truth is worse." He said his voice full of shame, "You live long enough you find that out."

"I can take it." Buffy said with confidence, "I can take the truth."

"Do you love me?" Buffy blinked she hadn't expected that question.

"What?"

"Do you?"

"I love you." She said after a long moment. "I don't know if I trust you."

"Maybe you shouldn't do either," he said turning away.

"Maybe I'm the one who should decide!" She shot back.

"I did a lot of unconscionable things when I became a vampire," he said turning but still looking down in shame. "Drusilla was the worst. She was... an obsession of mine. She was pure and sweet and chaste..."

"And you made her a vampire," Buffy said, putting two and two together.

"First I made her insane." Angel said finally looking her in the eye. "Killed everybody she loved. Visited every mental torture on her I could devise. She eventually fled to a convent, and on the day she took her holy orders, I turned her into a demon."

Buffy struggled to find her voice, "Well. I asked for the truth."

"Ford's part of some society that reveres vampires." Angel said. "Practically worships them. I don't know what he wants from you, but you can't trust him."

"Its worse than that Buffy." Came Cordelia's voice as she and Xander walked in from the kitchen. "The backdoor was open," she said by way of a explanation.  
"He has a plain Buffy," Xander said, "we don't know what but he definitely is up to no good, I think, no I know it involves you."

"I'll be ready."

NEXT DAY SUNNYDALE HIGH LIBRARY 6:15 PM

The shipment of shinobi weapons had come in; Cordelia and Xander now had a full load of kunai, shuriken, metal wire, and even senbon acupuncture needles. Plus they had the material to make more specialized equipment like explosive tags and smoke and flash bombs. As they tested their new kit they consulted Giles on both Ford and the Vampire brake-in he had had last night, "So if Ford let her go he must have made some kind of deal with her," Xander said as he tested the balance of a kunai, "The question is what?"

"Well," Cordelia answered, "We know he we know at lest some of the Sunset Club's patrons believe that vampires are some kind of ascended being, so one can assume that it would be to turn him."

"Oh crap," Xander cursed "the door, that's why they were took off the in side handle, their going to lock Buffy in with them, they give Spike the Slayer they get turn, we have to stop them."

SUNSET CLUB 6:35PM

"I don't have a choice." Ford told Buffy

"You have a choice. You don't have a good choice, but you have a choice! You're opting for mass murder here, and nothing you say is gonna make that okay!" As she said that the door opened and Cordelia and Xander stood there,

"Hay Buff, Hay Ford can we join the party," Xander said.

"Ya it looks like fun," Cordelia agreed.

With that Xander strode up to Ford and with out another word hit him, hard, the other teen crumpled, out like a light, with that done he grabbed Buffy's hand. "Come on Buff let's get out of here."

"Xander," she said. "We can't leave if we leave and Spike and his gang come in they will kill all of them"

"Just as they were planning to turn you over to Spike, so it's a little hard for me to really feel for them right now."

"Xander!"

Suddenly there was the sound of tires screeching to a halt, Cordelia just shock her head. "Well it's to late now the only way out is through the vamps now." Within seconds Xander and Buffy were by her side, Cordy and Xander stood on either side guarding Buffy's flanks, Buffy herself took up a position at the top of the stairs, the odds were 3 against the over fifty vampires that made up spikes crew not good odds at all. Buffy new the odd just as well as anyone and was still trying to get the young vampire wannabes to rush the door, "People, listen to me! This is not the mothership, people! This is ugly death come to play!" unfortunately Ford had chosen his flock of sheep well, all the people here would not about to change there mind with out seeing the monsters vampires were first hand, which would happen any moment now.

"Forget it Buffy, They are they're beyond reason. We'll be lucky if we save fifty percent." Xander coldly.

"We'll be lucky to get out of here with our own lives, Xander," Cordilea said. "Look at that hallway, that sharp turn is designed to stop flame from getting in here, but it dose the same with our fire ninjutsu getting out, and at this range it will all come back out this way and burn us, hell with this lack of space all we have are short range attacks and kunai if we stand and fight we'll be tying one arm behind our backs." She left the unspoken question hanging in the air, do we stand and fight, do we cut and run.

Buffy couldn't believe what she was hearing Xander and Cordilea were talking about the deaths of almost 20 people including themselves like they were just statistics. Xander for his part was remembering another battle, one he had not seen but remembered as if he had fought it himself, the battle with the _Kyūbi no Yōko,_ the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox had been like this, the ninja had had to stand and fight with the demon, the monster had been able shrug off any attacks that could be sent ageist it, had the Forth Hokage not been there they would all have died. With the lack of space, the need to protect the kids behind them, and not being to be able to use ninjutsu against at least 50 vampires, this was going to be just the same, and this time Minato-Sensei was not going to show up to save the day.

Spike made his way down the hallway smiling, in his over a hundred years as a vampire he had killed two slayers and with the help of this dweeb he would make it three, and get a more snacks at one time than he had ever had. As he came around the bend he realized the door was open and The Slayer was standing guarding at the stairs and The Cheerleader and The Dork were flanking her, not that he cared, he had the troops to stop one slayer and two hangers-on, those were his last thoughts before the hangers-on through knives at him, knives with the speed of a bullets, they say all men are created equal, that is not the case with vampires, some are a cut above the others, Spike was one of these vampires, at that was the only thing that allowed him to dodge the knives, two of his flunkies were not so lucky and were dusted. Spike then sent five of his vamps in first with a wave of his hand; he was not going to charge in there until the two knife wielding teens were out of the picture. The battle went much a Cordelia and Xander had predicted, two of the vamps fell to kunai as they charged, the remaining three split up to take on the three defenders one on one, with little room to maneuver the three teens were at a distanced disadvantage, however the two shinobi managed to over come this, Cordelia pushed chakra into her legs and using the grace born of cheerleading vaulted over her vampire and stabbed him in the back through the heart, Xander on the other had seemed to think this was the perfect time to test his Sharningan on vampires, pulling up his headband and activating it's hypnosis powers, which apparently worked vampires just as well as humans because the big vampire slowed and was in a trance when the kunai went through his heart. Buffy however was in a slightly more dangerous situation, with her position at the top of the stairs left her with no room to maneuver, she ended-up grappling with the vampire as the two fell down the stairs and about a seconds after Buffy dusted him she hit her head knocking out. Xander and Cordelia were quickly overwhelmed by the next five lead by spike himself and were pushed over the railing, like any ninja they pushed there chakra into the points of contact to brace themselves for the fall, this stopped them from breaking any bones but now they were in no position to stop the vampires form attacking the civilians. "Take them all!" Spike commanded. "Leave the Slayer for me!"

The young Goths were quickly realizing that the godlike beings they were expecting were not coming and in their place were the monsters of reality. The vampires feel on them like locusts, Cordilea and Xander were to busy fighting of four of the best vamp fighters to stop them. Lucky just as the vampires started to feed Buffy woke-up, she shook her head to clear it then spotted Drusilla on the floor above watching the mayhem, remembering the fact that Giles had said she was Spikes lover she leaped up to the balcony and grabbed the vampire in a strangle hold and pointed her stake at her heart "Spike!" she shouted out, the bleached vampire looked up from the girl he was feeding on.

"Everybody Stop!"

"Good idea." Buffy ashore the vampire. "Now you let everyone out, or your girlfriend fits in an ashtray."

"Spike?" Drusilla called out in a scared voice.

"It's gonna be alright, baby." Spike promised his girlfriend, "Let them go!" the vampires let their victims go, Cordilea and Xander leaving just before Buffy to inshore that everyone was out. As she reached the door, she pushed Drusilla down the stairs and slammed the door, looking the vampires in. Spike rushed the door only to find no way to open it. "Uh, where's the doorknob?"

Outside they found Giles, Ms. Calendar, Angel, and Willow racing towards them, "You guys are just in time." Buffy said.

"Are there vampires?"

"They're contained. They'll get out eventually, though. We should probably go. We can come back when they're gone."

Before anyone could ask why she wanted come back Xander spoke up. "Good job in there Buffy, you kept your head in an imposable situation and thought beyond the normal to find away to get everyone out, good job." Buffy smiled.

HOPE CEMETETY 7:00 PM

Buffy stood with Giles looking at Ford's grave "It'd be simpler if I could just hate him. I think he wanted me to. I think it made it easier for him to be the villain of the piece. Really he was just scared."

"Yes, I suppose he was." Giles said soothingly.

"Nothing's ever simple anymore. I'm constantly trying to work it out. Who to love or hate. Who to trust. Take Ford compared to Xan and Cordy. Ford was going to sell me and all those kids to Spike, that's supposed to make him the bad guy, but he did it because he was scared, and Xan and Cordy came to get me out of there, I've been so suspicious of them since Halloween, Giles, following them, trying to prove they're up to something but they still came for me, that's supposed to make them the good guys, but the way they were talking about the chances of saving those people like they were just numbers, it was so cold. It's just, like, the more I know, the more confused I get."

"I believe that's called growing up."

"I'd like to stop then, okay?"

"I know the feeling."

"Does it ever get easy?" as she said this the Vampire in Ford's body burst from his grave Buffy staked him with the same ever one would use with swatting a fly.

"You mean life?" Giles asked.

"Yeah. Does it get easy?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"Lie to me." The young slayer said in a small voice.

"Yes, it's terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and, uh, we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after."

"Liar."

Meanwhile Willow sat at her computer, she was narrowing down on her search, soon she'd have the right spell to both exercise the demons possessing Xander and Cordilea and erase their memories of Halloween, then all she would need was Buffy to prove to Giles and Ms Calendar that they were possessed and everything would be okay.

A.N. Sorry about the lack of good fights so far I promise that in the next few Chapters you will start to see real fights happen.


	6. bodyguard

I own none of this but the crazy idea of what would happen if I put Buffy and Naruto together. I am only doing it for fun and am making no money off of it.

English

_Japanese_

_I won't allow my comrades to die! I'll protect you with my life. Trust me_

_-_ Hatake Kakashi

The week rolled by and things settled back down into what past for normal on the Hellmouth, the problem with this was that Xander could no longer postpone his first real meeting since Halloween with the man that called himself his father.

It was 11 o'clock in the evening and Anthony Harris was drunk, not that that was a surprise, the man spent more time drunk or with a hangover than he did sober. Unfortunately for him he had not had as much to drink that night as he had most nights or he would have been in a drunken sleep long before Xander came home, as it was he had run out of Jack Daniels and now planed to ignore the self pity he had been trying to drink away by hitting Xander. So when Xander came in he was looking for a reason to start swinging, "Where have you been, Boy!" He yelled, dimly aware that one of Xander's eyes was covered, like he had lost it in a fight.

Xander looked at him, "Like you care, just go drink some beer and leave me alone Tony." That blatant disrespect was to much for Tony and he snapped, his fist went flying, and Anthony Harris knew pain, his whole body hurt, the doctors would later tell him that he had broken both his arms, two ribs, his nose, and had fractured his jaw but all he knew at that moment was that Xander was over him with a knife at his neck and a look on his face that would have scared the Devil himself, "Don't ever try to hit me again unless you want to die." With that Xander left.

The weekend came and with it revelations about Giles' past, it turned out that the tweed clad Watcher had been the leather jacket clad street mage and demon summoner Ripper in his college days, his dark past had been reveled when the Sleepwalker, the demon Eyghon had return to kill Giles and his old gang of friends including Ethan Rayne, the S.O.B. who had reasonable for the whole Halloween fiasco, the crises was obverted when Willow used Angel to battle the demon, the gambit worked but Ethan escaped. Though in his hast he left everything, his spell book ended up in Willow's hands and his product list ended up in Cordelia's, both had reason for reading them. The revelation about Giles' past was hard on all of them but Ms. Calendar and Buffy seemed to take it the hardest, Ms. Calendar was struggling to not blame him for her possession by Eyghon and Buffy was startled by the realization that Giles was as flowed and conflicted about his destiny as she was. Though what was really starting to worry Buffy was the divisions in the Scooby Gang that were starting to form, the two ninja were powerful allies, but were as before Xander would have done what she told him without question and Cordy would have grumbled but then done it, now though Xander only did what she told him when he agreed with her and Cordelia only followed Xanders orders and what she thought was best. Though the real problem was with Willow, she was still working with them but she was starting a passive aggressive campaign towards Xander and Cordelia, she was playing nice on the surface, underneath but there was this wave of snide comments and innuendo that they were possessed, it had all started a few days after Buffy had stacked Ford.

Buffy sat in Willow's room doing the final problem in her math homework, she would have never finished this if it hadn't been for Willow but now she was done and they could have a little fun, at least that's what she had planed on, so it came as quiet a shock when Willow looked at her with a serious look on her face and said "So what have you found out about whatever is possessing Xander and Cordelia."

"Um I don't think they're possessed Willow," Buffy said. "If they were lying to us it would be for some evil plot and they need us for something, and their just too good for that, if they meant us harm they could have just mowed through us, taken what they wanted, and there would have been nothing we could do about. I think they really are telling the truth." That set of a firestorm, Willow just could not see the rational arguments for what Buffy was saying, Buffy had always seen Willow as a rational person, but that night it seemed like she was just really good at making the irrational seem rational. It was an hour before she had agreed with Buffy, but seeing her on Friday and Saturday made Buffy feel that Willow may have just told her what she wanted to hear. But the days rolled one and nothing happened, and Buffy hoped that it would all blow over, until that two weeks later was on Monday night Buffy was patrolling through one of Sunnydale's way to numerous cemeteries alone, as Cordelia Xander and her had started breaking the town up into sectors to patrol more efficiently her mind was not really on what she was doing but rather on career week which had started that morning, she had been forced by Snyder to participate, though she saw no need, she was a slayer, her life was set, a short hard life fighting the forces of darkness, all for no pay. Willow had tried to cheer her up by saying how fun it would be to find out what she could have done had she not been the Slayer, unsurprisingly that hadn't helped, surprisingly though it had been Cordelia who had helped her some what, she had said she was looking at the Slayer powers the wrong way, yes she had been forced into this, yes it was a cosmic injustice, but with it she had been given a chance to make her self better, just as Cordelia had used what Ethan had done to her to become better, right now Buffy wanted to believe that but it was hard when you were 16 years old and all you really wanted was to fit in. Suddenly she heard a sound from inside one of the crypts, a crypt with a light on inside, going up to the door she cracked it open, a vampire was in there, a vampire geek, he was stealing something. Buffy closed the door and stood back to wait.

She didn't have to wait long he came out a moment latter carrying something, "Dose 'Rest in Peace' have no sanctity to you people?" Buffy quipped, scaring the vampire so bad she was surprised he didn't turn to ash on the spot, "Oh, I forgot your not a people." She was about to attack when she was attacked from behind it wasn't a very good attack, Buffy was easily able to break his hold and stack him. "One down," she said as she got up turning to strike at the other one, who had vanished, "One gone."

SUNNYDALE HIGH 8:30 AM

"So, uh, I trust last night's patrol was fruitful?" Giles asked, they were in the library; Giles new efficiency kick meant that Buffy needed to cheek in every morning after homeroom. She was now telling him about the night before, Xander and Cordelia were also there, though they did not need to report to Giles they still showed up to keep him informed.

"Semi. Mm, I caught one out of two vamps after they stole something from this jumbo mausoleum." She answered.

"They were stealing?"

"Yeah! They had tools, flashlights, the whole nine yards. What does that mean anyway? 'Whole nine yards'?"

"It's a football reference Buffy." Xander said.

"Oh thanks Xan. Giles, you're in pace mode. What gives?"

The Watcher looked at her over the top of his glasses. "Um, this vampire who escaped, did you see what he took?"

"No, but I could take a guess and say it was something old."

"You made no effort to find out what was taken?"

"Well, what if it wasn't? This could be very serious! I mean i-i-if you'd made an effort to, uh, to be more thorough in your observations..."

"Y'know, if you don't like the way I'm doing my job, why don't you find somebody else?" Buffy snapped "Oh, that's right, there can only be one. As long as I'm alive, there is no one else. Well, there you go! I don't have to be the Slayer. I could be dead."

"Settle down Buffy," Xander said. "He's just worried about you, intelligence is the key to winning battles and keeping you alive, unless you really do want to die."

Wouldn't be much of a change." Buffy whined, "Either way I'm bored, constricted, I never get to shop, and my hair and fingernails still continue to grow. So really, when you think about it, what's the diff?"

"Oh stop with the pity party, Buffy," Cordilea snapped. "Oh I'm so put on, I'm the victim, shut up, you have power, which I know you like, so now its time to pay the piper, use this power to help people, to save them, because they need people like us."

"As it says in the Spider-man comic. 'With great power comes great responsibility.'" Xander chimed in.

"Fine." Buffy said, annoyed at their tone of superiority.

"Yes well do we have to be introspective now?" Giles said, "Our only concern is to discover what was stolen from that mausoleum last night."

Meanwhile in the abandoned warehouse that serviced as Spikes hideout ornate cross lay on a velvet pillow, Drusilla ran her hand over it a few inches in the air, "It hums, I can hear it." She said.

"Once you're well again, we'll have a coronation down Main Street, and invite everyone, and drink for seven days and seven nights." Spike said lovingly.

"What about the Slayer?" Asked Dalton, the geek vampire language expert. "She almost blew the whole thing for us. She's trouble. And what those new stories about the new demon hunters." It was true, since Halloween the whispers had become an urban legend to the demons, hunters that were more at home in the darkness than the demons they hunted, they were starting to scare some demons more than the slayer, after seeing the two knife wielding teens at the Sunset Club Spike had a sneaking suspicion he knew identity of these new hunters.

"You _don't_ say?" Spike snapped at the other vampire, "Trouble! They're the gnat in my ear! The gristle in my teeth! They're the bloody thorn in my Bloody Side!"

"Spike?" Drusilla said, concerned to see her Childe so upset.

"We gotta do something. We'll never complete your cure with that _bitch_ breathing down our necks." Spike said to her, as she began to shuffle tarot cards. "I need to bring in the big guns. They'll take care of her and her friends once and for all."

Dalton looked a little worried as he asked "Big guns?"

"The Order of Taraka," Spike said with a satisfied smile.

That sent the vampire transcriber in near panic, "The bounty hunters?" he squeaked out.

Drusilla smiled "They're coming to my party." she said as she dealt three cards Cyclops, another was centipede and the third a panther, "Three of them," at this she looked up at Spike who had come over to look at the card.

"Uh, yes, but" Dalton said pausing to find the right words. "The Order of Taraka, I mean... isn't that overkill?"

"No," Spike said with an evil smile, "I think it's just enough kill."

CEMETEREY 9:00 AM

Xander followed Buffy and Giles, Buffy to the Crypt. Buffy was still pouting about how unfair her job was, Xander was really starting to get annoyed, even with Naruto's antics Sakura's fan girl act and temper, and Sauske's issues Team 7 had acted more mature than this and they were 12, had any of Kakashi's gennin acted like this on a mission, the whole team would have been in danger, and Kakashi would have put a stop to it then and there, but what made him more angry was he could say nothing more about it, he was Buffy's peer not her sensei, he had no place to tell her again what she was doing was wrong, he had said it once that was all he could do. It was up the G-Man, but Giles wasn't doing that great a job. Lucky the pity party stopped as they entered the tomb. As he steeped through the door he moved the eye patch he wore when not wearing his headband, one of the benefits of the Sharingan was that the eye forced the brain to take in every detail and instantly memorize them, it was one of the reasons Uchiha did well in investigative work. Meanwhile Buffy had handed Giles the flash light and he and Xander made their way to the place were the wall had been removed, "It's a reliquary. Used to house items of religious significance. Most commonly a finger or some other body part from a saint." Giles explained.

"Note to self," Buffy said, "Religion freaky."

Meanwhile Xander was looking at the dust settlements and drag marks left behind, "It's a cross."

"What?" asked Buffy.

"The item they took was some kind of cross, I can tell."

"How?"

"Lets just call it a Sharingan thing and leave it at that."

As this conversation was going on Giles noted the name one the tomb, "Du Lac. Oh dear, oh dear."

"I hate it when you say that," Buffy said looking up.

"Josephus Du Lac was buried here. He belonged to a religious sect that was excommunicated by the Vatican at the turn of the century."

"Excommunicated _and_ sent to Sunnydale. There's a guy big with the sinning."

"You remember the book that was stolen from the library by a vampire a few weeks ago?"

"Yeah," came both teens' responses.

"It was written by Du Lac. Damn it! I let it slip my mind with all the excitement." Giles said

"I'm guessing it wasn't a 'Taste of the Vatican' cookbook," Buffy quipped, trying to mask her concern with jokes.

"No, the, uh, book was said to contain rituals and spells that reap unspeakable evil." He said as he began to leave the Tomb, "However, it was written in archaic Latin so that nobody but the sect members could understand it."

"So every thing is cool then?"  
"No Buffy," Xander answered for him, "he's saying that a disturbing pattern is emerging."

"He's right Buffy. First the book was taken from the library, and now the vampires have stolen something from Du Lac's tomb."

"You think they figured out how to read the book?"

Giles took a scan of the horizon as if searching for some threat to come over the hills before speaking, "Something's coming, and whatever it is I can guarantee it's not good."

SUNNYDALE HIGH 5:30 PM

The Scooby gang minus Xander sat in the library waiting for him to show up, he was half an hour late when he finally came in his face buried in a book, eye hidden by his headband, the sight brought a smile to Cordilea and Buffy's faces, Buffy had come to categorize this chronic tardiness as part of Xander's antics, though she noticed Willow's scowl, brushing it off she said in a falsely angry voice, "Your late."

"Sorry a black cat crossed my path and I had to take the long way around." That got a chuckle out of Buffy and an even deeper scowl out of Willow. Xander sat down as Giles came out from behind a bookshelf a magazine in hand, "Now that we are all here we can begin. Thanks to Xander's noting that the vampires had taken a cross and the book that was stolen from this library, I was able to narrow the search down."

"Are you shore they are connected?" Willow interrupted

"Yes, I'm sure. Du Lac was both a, a... a theologian and a mathematician. This article describes an invention of his, which he called 'The Du Lac Cross'.

"The cross was more than a mere symbol, it was used to understand certain mystical texts, to, uh, decipher hidden meanings and so forth."

"So you're saying these vampires went to all this hassle for your basic decoder ring?" Buffy summarized.

"Uh, actually, yes, I, I suppose I am." Giles said, somewhat surprised that things were so simple to explain for once.

"According to this, Du Lac destroyed every cross except the one buried with him." Willow said, now reading the article on The Cross.

"Why destroy your own work?" Buffy asked.

"Perhaps he feared what might happen if it fell into the wrong hands." Giles said

"A fear we'll soon get to experience for ourselves up close and personal." Xander said in a cold voice.

"U-unless we can preempt their plans." Giles confirmed.

"How?" asked Willow

"Uh, by learning what's in the book before they do, which means we can expect to be here later tonight."

"Goody! Research party!" said the suddenly way to happy Willow.

Xander stared at her, "Will, you need a life in the worst way." He said deadpan.

"Yah," Cordelia agreed, "as important as intelligence is to our job this kind of information gathering is not something to get existed about"

"Speaking of," Buffy said, "I really have to bail, but I promise I'll be back bright and early tomorrow and ready to slay." Cordelia, Giles, and Xander all tensed at that statement.

"I realize that. Well, you have to admit, I kinda lack in the book area. I mean, you guys are the brains, I'd only be here for moral support anyway." She resend, the two ninja were not fooled, it was an excuse, what ever she was doing to night meant more to here than the lives of the people that could die from this.

"That's why you need to be here Buffy, the only way to get better is to practice, it could save your life one day." Xander countered.

"She should go," Willow said way to fast, "Y-you know, gather her strength."

"Perhaps you're right. There may be fierce battles ahead." Giles said, conceding defeat. That was all Buffy needed, she was up and out the door in less than a minute. As the door swung closed the two teen shinobi and the Watcher shared a look before getting to work.

As Giles left to get more books Cordelia and Xander looked at Willow, "So what is she doing?" Xander asked.

"I-I don't k-know what you're talking about," Willow said, Xander wondered if she realized just how bad she was at lying.

"Don't lye." Cordelia snapped.

"She's going ice skating with Angel," she said as if the romance of this made it okay.

Xanders visible eye rolled, and Cordelia banged her forehead protector on the table, "_Tell me I was not that stupid before Halloween." _She said to Xander in Japanese.

"_You where, but in your defiance you never had to learn this lesson, Buffy has."_ Xander said, having a normal life was okay, but the secret was balance, like working in shifts during guard duty and the like, but now was the time for all hands on deck, by putting her personal life ahead of her duties she was hurting both and putting herself and others at risk. It was times like this that made Xander hate Angel; his relationship with Buffy hurt her concentration and could get her hurt, or worse. It reminded Xander of Haruno Sakura, when Sakura had first been placed on team 7 she had cared for little more than Sasuke and her looks, much like Buffy, but the 12 year old kunoichi had quickly shown more maturity than the 16 year old Slayer, not long after she had joined the shinobi corps she had learned what was truly important and set about making herself into a better solider and person. Buffy had been at this for three year, longer than team 7 had operated and she still seemed not to learn these lessons. As Giles came in they got back to work, six hours later they called it quits, still no closer to finding out what Spike was planning than before.

SUNNYDALE HIGH 8:30 AM

The next day came and Buffy came in with a story of a one eyed guy trying to kill her and the ring he wore, giving it to Giles the ring which he put under a magnifying glass. "This guy was hard-core, Giles. And Angel was power-freaked by that ring." She was saying as he finished his examinations.

"I'm afraid he was not overreacting. This ring is worn only by members of the Order of Taraka." Giles said, "It's a society of deadly assassins dating back to King Solomon."

"Oh Crap!" Xander and Cordelia said, they both had been spending time with Giles going over the greatest threats he knew of, the Order of Taraka was fairly high on the list, they bolted to a cabinet, to revel a supply of their own weapons, each began to add even more weapons to their arsenal, Buffy could recognize the Explosive Tags they had shown her last week, at lest 15 more kunai, and in Cordy's case poison tipped kunai and at lest 25 senbon needles.

"What's wrong?" Willow asked as they loaded up.

"It's a exceptive response for this threat willow, they are a most deadly order. Their credo is to sow discord and kill the unwary. This is very bad, I need to think." He sat in silence for a moment before Buffy broke the silence.

"These assassins, why are they after me?"

"'Cause you're the scourge of the underworld?" said Willow, her hero worship of Buffy evident in her words and voice.

"I haven't been that scourgey lately." Buffy said in a glum voice.

"Most likely they were paid to kill you," said Xander, "I'd said it was Spike since we know he has the book and the cross, he wants to kill you now so you can't stop him."

"More than likely yes," said Giles, "but it dose not matter now I think the best thing we can do is to find a secure location. Somewhere out of the way you can go until we decide on the best course of action."

"Okay, now you and Angel have both said to head for the hills." Buffy said accusatorily," Are you saying I can't handle this, that I'm not strong enough to fight these people?"

"Yes," Cordilea said, nether Cordilea Chase or Mitarashi Anko had ever been one to mince word or pander to ones delusions.

"They're a breed apart, Buffy," Giles said, trying to make the girl understand, "U-unlike vampires they have no earthly desires, but to collect their bounty. They find a target, and, uh... they eliminate it." Buffy sat in startled silence as the reality of what she was facing sunk in. Willow was having a next to impossible time understanding, the Slayer was suppose to be the strongest thing in the world, with her help Buffy was supposed to be unstoppable. Then Giles spoke again, "Each one of them works alone. His own way." He was now looking Buffy right in the eye, there was fear in his eyes; Buffy had only seen this kind of fear in his eyes once before, when she had faced the Master. "Some are human, some... a-are not. Y-you won't know who they are until they strike."

"Which is why someone will need to be with you at all times." Xander said, "I volunteer Cordy and myself."

"Yep, yep, yep," said Cordy, "we now how to do a bodyguard job, we know what to look for. This way you don't have to carry this burden alone, and get so worked up you snap on some poor civilian"

"I-I-I don't know if that's a good-" Willow began before Buffy cut her off.

"Okay."

ANGEL'S APARTMENT 5:00 AM

Buffy slept on Angels bed, her two body guards had taken the night in shifts, first they had taken her out on the town, or rather they had visited the mall with Cordelia's friend Arura, Cordy explained that it was because of all the witnesses and the security cams that they were there until they figured out a more permanent plan. That plan turned out to be for them to take her to Angel's, as they would not let her near her place, "It's where I would wait for you if I was going to kill you." Cordelia had said, the Vampire was out, probably hunting down leads to who hired the Bounty Hunters. Cordelia had taken the 9 pm to 1 am shift, nothing much happened. At 1:00 she was relived by Xander to get some sleep before going to Buffy's house in the morning to pick up her things and investigating of the house's security statues. The night passed quietly, Xander was actually able to finish a book, but he couldn't shack the feeling that this was not going to be this easy.

1630 REVELLO DRIVE 6:00 AM

It was a nice morning as Cordelia walked up to the door and let her self in with Buffy's key, as she began to search the house for signs of brake-ins when there was a knock at the door. Pulling a kunai she opened the door, a middle-aged man with glasses and a business suit, looking completely normal, just the kind of man you would want to look like for a stealth kill, "Good day." He said holding up a brief case "I'm Norman Pfister with Blush Beautiful Skin Care and Cosmetics. I was wondering if I might interest you in some free samples?" Now the young Ms. Chase had a choice to make, this could be a Taraka assassin or it could be a real salesman, so she could ether close the door, or let him enter, kill him if he attacked her or get some free make-up if he was for real.

"Free!" She said with a smile.

ANGEL'S APARTMENT

As Xander watch reached 6:00 a figure came down the stares ax in hand, and stood temporally framed in the sun light, this assassin was a girl maybe 16 years old with mocha colored skin and her hair pulled back in a pony tail, she had not spotted Xander from his place in the shadows, though she really wasn't looking, she headed strait for the door behind which Buffy slept, shaking his head at the amateur mistake this 'top assassin' had just made he decided to say hello, he reached for two flash bombs, the ninja equivalent of the flash bang used by armed forces and SWAT teams world wide the small bomb were made to disorient with blinding light and deafening sound, which was why Xander drooped behind the corner after he though it, immerging a second later when his target was seeing spots, he used her disorientation to close, not trusting his ninjutsu just yet the shinobi closed to hand to hand range, unfortunately the girl recovered more quickly than she should have allowing her to block his punch before countering with her ax, now the ax was a potent weapon but un like the sword or staff, it had no defensive power, the ax was all about the strike and the kill, to use one effectively in defensive combat one had to either used a two handed weapon and keep the ax moving at all times or had a one handed ax and had a secondary weapon such as a shield, this girl had only a one handed which she used to deliver a power blow at Xander apparently convinced that the strike was delivered with the speed and power to finish her opponent off with one strike, so she was un prepared when Xander dodged with his chackra powered speed, allowing him to strike at her over extended back, sending her sprawling and her ax flying from her grip, but she was back up in a flash and back in the fight, though Xander was not closing to meet her instead he fell back and started running through a set of hand seals, Ram, Boar, Ox, Dog or Ram, Snake, Tiger, "_Bunshin no Jutsu"_ (Clone Technique) he yelled as he finished the Tiger hand seal, with that he changed direction and charged. His opponent was startled by the charge of what she saw as four people who looked just like her opponent, had she been a ninja over the rank of genin she would have noticed that three of them were not interacting with the environment, no footsteps no dust movement, nothing, but as she was not a ninja she was not trained to notice these things on the fly, so when they attacked she responded the way anyone would responded, by trying to fight all of them, only to swing at air a few times before getting kicked across the hall. Xander denied her the chance to recover by attacking as she got back up, out side he was cool and calm but on the inside he was starting to get worried, this opponent was on Buffy level, and after only a month of training he just wasn't ready to fight on this level in a drown out fight on his own, he needed to end this now, reaching up he pulled his forehead protector up reviling his Sharingan, the girl didn't seem to surprised buy his eye, but he figured when you were from a group of assassins with non-human members your was bound see some weird stuff, but it clearly did surprise her when Xanders speed, which she was already struggling to keep up with incised to a point were she could not hope to follow, with in a minute he had blown through her defenses and delivered a crippling blow to her mid section followed by a round house kick to he head that had her down for the count. After she stopped moving Xander looked her over, she had no ring but then why was she after Buffy? Just as he asked the question in his mind Buffy came out awoken by the noise, "Xander, what's going on.

"I don't know, I stopped what I thought was a Taraka assassin from attacking you but she has no ring."

"So then why was she after me."

"That is the question, lets ask her," with that he picked girl up and carried her in side.

A few minuets later Buffy and Xander stood around waiting for their young attacker to awaken, she was currently tide to a chair unconscious, as they waited she started to come to. "Who are you?" She asked in a deep Caribbean accent, "Why am I being held prisoner?"

"Why," Xander said coldly "you attack us, you come hear with a deadly weapon meaning to kill her," he pointed at Buffy, "and you have the nerve to ask why you are being held. As for who we are." He grabbed her ponytail, hard, "You are in no position to ask questions, we are the ones in the position to ask, so who are you?"

"I am Kendra! De Vampire Slayer!" She said in defiance.


	7. Your A What?

_Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb._

Sir Winston Churchill

The Slayer and the Ninja stood there in shock at what the dark skinned girl had just said. Buffy was the first to speak, "Ok one more time who are you again?"

"I'm de Slayer."

"Nice try," Buffy said sarcastically, "but little tip, you might want to try that on someone who isn't the _actual_ Slayer."

The girl in the chair was not getting the message though, "Ya can't stop me! Even if you kill me another Slayer will be sent to take my place!" As she spoke Xander walked around to look the girl in the eye.

"Could you with the Slayer thing already!" Buffy snapped, "I'm the damn Slayer."

"Nonsense! Dere is but one and I am she!" The girl said in return, Xander looked at her, calling on Kakashi's ANBU training he tried to see if she was lying, she wasn't.

"Buffy," he said into the blond Slayers ear, "She's telling the truth, she thinks she is the Slayer."

"Okay a scenario," Buffy said. "We untie you, but you promise not to go all wiggy until we can go to my Watcher and figure this out."

"Wiggy?"

"You know. No kick-o, no fight-o?" The blond slayer responded.

The other slayer, if that was really what she was, thought about this for a moment then said, "I accept your scenario." with that Xander un-tide her and she stood up.

"So. You were sent here?"Buffy asked

"Yes, by my Watcher," the other responded.

"To do what, exactly?"

"To do my duty, I am here to kill vampires."

Buffy's House- 7:00

Cordelia Chase was having a bad day, she had let the this 'Norman' in thinking that if he really was an assassin she could kill him away from prying eyes, at first glance he seemed legitimist, his case did indeed carry make-up products and not something more sinister like an Uzi, and before Halloween Cordelia might have bought it, oh how naive she had been back then, but now she was wiser and if you were looking for it, it was kind of obvious, what with the fact that this guy would not be winning any Oscars any time soon and all. So when she saw the bug crawled across his face she was ready, the kunai she had kept hidden slammed into his chest, if he was a bug user then Cordelia need to hit him fast, she knew bug users, the Aburame clan of Kohona were possibly the foremost bug users in Anko's world and they could cover a person in bugs and kill them in seconds. She smiled as he staggered back, 'Scratch one assassin.' She thought, just as Norman exploded into a cloud of bugs.

Cordelia only had time to yell out "Oh crap!" before the bugs swarmed her, she managed to jump back but it was only delaying the inevitable, the house she had thought would be a prison for her enemy was now her prison. She dodged the bugs a few more times before they just disappeared, she searching for them when she was grabbed from behind with by someone with near super human strength, luckily she was able to flip him over and on to the floor, were he promptly dissolved into a swarm of bugs once more. With that Cordelia bolted out the door to the kitchen, that had proven it, this guy was more than just a bug user that had made a bug clone to save himself from her knife, he **really** **was a swarm of bugs**; that changed things and she had to work fast if she was going to get out of this one. The bug swarm followed her with amazing speed, crawling under the door as Cordelia looked around for something to slow them up with. Her eyes darted around the room until they settled on the sink, or rather the water spray hose attachment, running over to it she turned on the water and unleashed a spray of water that hit the bugs full force, the bugs may have been weird paranormal bugs but they were still bugs and the torrent of water hit them head on knocking them back and scattering them buying her the precise seconds she needed to make her escape. As she reached the outside she made a hard left turn and then leaped into a nearby tree. Once safely hidden to the young kunoichi got ready for her prey. The swarm quickly regrouped after the water attack, the hive mind registered that the girl had escaped and reformed into 'Norman' to follow her in public as the swarm exited the house it heard a voice cry out to its left "_Katon: Gōkakyu no Jutsu_;"( Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique) and turned just in-time to see a giant ball of flame come flying towards it.

Cordelia smiled the Great Fireball hit its mark and knocked the bounty hunter back before consuming him in flame. She smiled, "Ha take that you stupid bugs, never mess with Cordelia Chase unless you want to be roasted, I'm the, - Oh Crap," she said as the smoke and flames disappeared and the assassin still stood there. She did a quick _Konoha-Shunshin no Jutsu _(Leaf Body Flicker Technique) to get away, then she headed by tree and roof top towards the school, cursing as she went, this was not supposed happen, when she killed something it was supposed to die dam it, well she'd find a way, somewhere in Giles smelly old books there had to be away to kill that swarm, Giles had once said that anything that physically manifests in this world could be killed, so she'd find out how and then she would be the one to do the killing, right after she had some donga and told Giles and Xander what was going on.

High School-7:00

Meanwhile Xander was having a very bad morning, he had forgone reading his current book in hops that he could understand better why there were now two slayers, though now he really wished he had chosen to read it, it was a great book, it was no _Icha Icha Paradaisu _(Make-Out Paradise) but it had romance, adventure, a great plot, and so much more, while this whole thing was giving him a migraine, first there was Buffy who was getting increasingly aggressive towards Kendra, so much so that Xander was starting to wonder if being overly aggressive and territoriality were Slayer traits. Though Kendra was just as bad, if not worse, the girl acted like a science fiction robot soldier, completely loyal, completely emotionless, and little in the way of social skills, Kakashi had run into ninja like this during his time in ANBU, namely the ANBU Ne operatives. _ANBU_ (Dark Side) was acutely short for _**AN**__satsu Senjutsu Tokushu __**BU**__tai_ (Special Assassination and Tactical Squad), if Shinobi were like this worlds Special Forces, then ANBU would be the Army's Delta Force or United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group more commonly known as DEVGRU or SEAL Team 6, like those elite forces ANBU were selected from the best of the regular Ninja Corp, their identity were kept hidden, they were then given special training, and then they were sent by the Kage of their village on the most dangerous and secret of missions, the kind of mission to hard or delicate for even a normal Ninja. Then there was ANBU Ne (Dark Side Root), they were a unit unique to_ Konohagakure no Sato_, Root was a product of a time of fear in the Leaf Village, A time when the Council had feared the growing wars. Danzo, a village elder and political rival of the Third Hokage had suggested a solution, he would create, train, and run a special branch of the Konoha ANBU division designed to be the ultimate Black Operator, trained away from the rest of the ninja corp. for just that job. The Council agreed, and so ANBU Ne was formed, when Root first diploid it meet with initial success until the review of the unit found some disturbing facts that Danzo had tried to hide. The ANBU Ne record was not notably higher than that of the rest of ANBU, further more while the Root got the job done they were too ruthless, taking out targets and anyone that got in their way, anyone, the problem lay in their training, all Leaf Ninja were taught the Shinobi Code, and one rule in particular would have a great impact on Root training, it was rule 25, "A shinobi must never show emotion." To most shinobi like Kakashi this meant you were supposed to hide your feelings so that the enemy couldn't find your weakness exploit it, but Danzo had his own ideas about that and so he trained his men to have no emotions, this resulted in operatives having no moral compass to work with, basicly giving you a solider that could not be trusted with delicate assignments. But the nail in the coffin was a report about part of their training program, ANBU Ne trainees were pitted in battles to the death, something considered unacceptable by most of the Council. So despite Danzo's protests Root was officially disbanded, though most ANBU agreed that it was really still operational. Kendra would fit right in with Ne and looking at her Xander started to get a bad feeling about the Watchers Council, if they were as much like Danzo as Kendra's training suggested then they could be real trouble later on and she could be a problem right now. She had already pounced on Willow as she entered the library, and then she presided to make Giles explain why Buffy had friends like he would to a child, and she wasn't too happy about it once she did understand. "But de Slayer most work secret; for security." She said once she understood.

"Of course, uh, but, uh, with Buffy, some flexibility is required," Giles said.

"Why?" Kendra then she looked at Xander. "And what are you, you are no demon, but you are no civilian, you fight too well."

"Let's just say I am another hunter, my partner and I work with Buffy because it is more efficient than all of us working alone."

Before they could go any further Willow interrupted, "Hi, guys. W-what's going on?"

"Apparently there's been a really big mix-up," Buffy said

"Uh, it seems somehow that, uh," Giles said, "another Slayer has been sent to Sunnydale."

"Is that even possible, I mean two slayers at the same time?" Willow asked.

"Not to my knowledge."Giles managed to stammer out, "Um, th-the new Slayer is only called after the previous Slayer has died. Uh... " It was as if a light went on in Giles' head. "Oh, good Lord! You were dead, Buffy."

"I was only gone for a minute."

"Clearly it doesn't matter how long you were gone. You were physically dead! Thus causing the activation of the; the next Slayer. " Giles said with a nod towards Kendra.

"You died!" the Jamaican slayer said incredulously.

"Just a little," the other grumbled

"She drowned," Giles explained, "but she was revived."

"So," Willow said excitedly, "there really could be two of them!"

"It would seem so." Giles said.

"What's the flum?" Buffy said, "It's a mistake. She isn't supposed to be here, she goes home!" she looked at Kendra, "Look, No offence, I really don't mean this personally but I'm not dead and frankly having you around creeps me out just a little bit."

"I cannot just leave!" Kendra said to the other slayer, "I was sent here for a reason, Mr. Zabuto said all de signs indicate dat a very dark power was about to rise in Sunnydale."

"And what's your big plan for dealing with this Evil?" Buffy said sarcasm in every syllable. "You just going to attack people randomly tell you find a bad one?"

"Of Course Not!" Kendra was offended by the question.

"Then why did you attack me?" came the cold response

"I tought you were a vampire." The new slayer responded, Xander meanwhile was trying to decide if the Watchers Council was power hungry for the way they had trained Kendra, or incompetent for sending her hear without telling her Buffy was here.

"Oh, a swing and a miss for the rookie." Said Buffy way to happy about the other slayer's mistake.

"I had good reason to tink you were," the Jamaican slayer snapped, "did I not see you kissing a Vampire?" Xander now really wished he had read his book; this was going to be a pain to explain.

"Buffy would never do that!" Willow yield out, then the truth dawned on her, "oh," Xander was beginning to wonder how someone as smart as Willow could not use her brain as much as she did when Willow looked over to Buffy, "Except sometimes you do that, but only with Angel, right?"

At this point Xander had decided to tune the conversation out and began to flip through his book looking for the place he left off, unfortunately just as he found his spot he was interrupted by Buffy. "What did you do?" She yelled at the other slayer

What Kendra did as it turned out was lock Angel into a cage in the back of Willy's Bar. Immediately after that Buffy left to save Angel followed by Xander and dragging Kendra, the sounds of her threats heard long after the doors closed, leaving Giles and Willow to wonder what would happen next, they didn't have to what long as just a few moments after Buffy and the others had left Cordilea came storming in, a look of pure murderous rage on her face so strong that it would have caused small children to cry and make even the most gun ho soldiers to think twice before getting in her way, and letting out a string of English and Japanese curses that would have surprised even a sailor, without sparing Willow and Giles a look she headed right to the office grabbed the pot of hot water Giles used to make tea, pored herself a cup, picked up a Tea infuser, grabbed a special brand of Asian tea she had brought in after Halloween, and made herself some tea, with that done she pulled some donga she had left in Giles' mini-frig and sat down to eat. She visibly calmed as she ate, Giles was starting to think these little quirks the two teens had inherited where some kind of defiance mechanism to help them deal with the horrors of their lives as ninja. After a while she looked at Giles with a serious look on her face and said. "We have a problem." With that she told Giles and Willow the story of her fight with Norman the Creepy Bug dude that would not die, and how angry she was about that fact.

"So this Insect Swarm Assassin," Giles summing up her story, "Appeared human, until he struck, and was immune to your fire based attack."

"Yes, now break out the books; I need to know how to kill it!" Cordy said in a dark voice. Giles hurried to get some books, it seemed best to let Miss Chase use her anger to find the information she sought, lest she take out her anger on something, or someone.

The two slayers and their ninja escort returned within the hour with the news that Willy had let Angel out. After the introduction of Cordy to Kendra the High School students went to class. The day was long and trying for the two Shinobi, the two slayers were arguing and sniping at each other like Naruto and Sauske on a bad day, and Giles was only making it worse, for all his intelligence Giles was not well trained in the art of dealing with teenage girls and their problems, which was weird for a Watcher who was by definition suppose to work with a teenage girl, but after seeing Kendra Xander felt there might be a reason for that, so without knowing it all he was doing encouraging Kendra's snide comments and Buffy's feelings of insecurity, which in turn increased her own snide comments, by lunch time Xander and Cordilea were praying for a demon attack, unfortunately nether was nearby when the third assassin attacked, some chick in a Sunnydale PD uniform and way too many guns and knives on her, Buffy and Kendra had managed to stop her but not before one of her misses winged a student named Daniel "Oz" Osborn, a friend of Willows, the only other high light was the discovery that Angel as Drusilla's Sire was needed to return her to full health. So it was no surprise at the end of the day to find the two ninja huddled over books looking for intelligence on Bug Dude and Police Lady, while Giles and Willow looked into the Ritual further. It was not going well, the Order of Taraka had hundreds of active assassins of all kinds, and the only known full account of what Spike was planning was in the text he had stolen. The only high light so far was when a loud crash came from the other room, were Buffy and Kendra had been, according to Buffy, Kendra had, "Killed the bad lamp," Willow had smiled a vicious smile at this, adding another incident to Xander's 'Things Willow dose that are starting to worry me list.' "Okay," Xander said as he flipped through a book, "I got Bug Man." He showed them the picture as he picked up corresponding book, "It says here that he can only be killed while in his disassembled state."

That made Cordilea's day, "Thank you Xander!" She said, hugging him, "Now I just need to go find the right things to help kill him. Oh I know just the thing." With that she skipped out of the room, oblivious to the stair Willow was giving her, if looks could kill then Cordilea Chase would have died a slow and agonizing death.

Xander meanwhile got up to stretch; he walked around until he came into earshot of Buffy and Kendra's conversation

"Emotions are weakness, Buffy. You shouldn't entertain dem."Kendra was saying.

"Kendra, my emotions give me power, they are total assets."

"Actually, girls" Xander said, Kakashi's memoires of teaching three young Genin, and arguments with Obito that were settled by Sensei compelling him to speak, "you are both right, and both so very wrong."

That got their attention, Buffy scowled at him, while Kendra looked uncomfortable with his presence, "Uh… How uh… How is… It wrong?" she stammered out, he had noticed this before, after finding out he was not an enemy Kendra seemed to have trouble with how to deal with him, as she didn't seem to have this trouble with Willow or Cordy Xander guest that it had to do with the fact that he was a boy, this was more than likely the first time since the Watchers took her that she was interacting on a personal level with a male close to her own age

"Emotions are a two edged sword, it can cut down your enemy or it can cut down you, if you let your emotions rule you, you get sloppy, you purge your emotions and you get no real power behind your strikes, as well as problems with improvisation, and staying alive." He said with the air of someone giving a friendly lecture. "Buffy, do you know why Cordy and I beat you in that match we had?" She shook her head, "You were arrogant and angry with us, so we played on that, we used it to make you sloppy, and then we went in for the kill." He then looked over at Kendra. "You on the other hand have a completely different problem. You don't feel, all of your moves are flawless, you are stronger than I am, you can out last me in a fight, and the corridor we fought in was limiting my maneuverability and speed, but still I beat you do you know why?"

The Jamaican Slayer nodded, "De Magicks you used, Dey gave you de edge."

"No, my magic, as you call it, was just a tool, the real flaw is in you," he said, "You fight like it's an exhibition match, there's no emotional content, at least Buffy has anger, that's not really emotional content but it's better than nothing. Your chose of weapon highlights another problem, you used a one handed ax to attack an unknown advisory, not only did you not bring a defensive weapon with you but you also used it like a two handed ax, leaving me openings to exploit. Let me guess, the Slayer is supposed to always be willing to give her life for the world, because when they die another is called?"

"Yes."

"Well that's stupid," that got her mad but Xander ignored the scowl she was sending him, "giving your life is not stupid, I too am willing to die for the cause, the reasoning that another slayer will be called so you're really expandable is the stupid part, your life is the most important thing you have, never waste it. To give your life for something is the most valuable gift you can give, and you cheapen it by dyeing stupidly, each day you live you do a little more good in the world, good only you can do, not the Slayer, but you Kendra, no one has ever won a war by dyeing for their cause they win it by making the other guy die for theirs. So you need to be willing to fight to the death but also be willing to fight to live, don't act like you love death more than life, because you do that you become a monster just like the things we fight." With that he turned and left the room leaving the Chosen Ones with a lot to think about.

Things went from bad to worse very quickly as Cordilea had gone out to get whatever it was that she needed to kill the bug man and Xander needed to go answer nature's call while they were gone the two slayers had come out with a plan to hit Willy until he gave them what they wanted to hear and Giles let them go, after all what could be more safe and effective than two slayers, so it came as quite a shock to him when Xander came back and was most displeased with the inter notion of them going off on their own, he was even more shocked when Cordilea agreed with him. "How could you just let them go out alone?" Cordilea asked accusingly.

"I saw no harm in letting Buffy and Kendra, two competent and powerful slayers, handle this."

"They're not used to working on a team G-man." Xander said, "Kendra has next to no social skills and Buffy is too worried and angry about Angel to think. Putting them together now on something this important, without adult supervision, is downright dangerous, mark my words, this can only end badly."

"Oh come on Xander," Willow said, "this is Buffy were talking about, she will be okay."

Cordilea snorted, "Willow" she said, "all this blind faith you have in Buffy, it really would be so cute if it wasn't so sad, grow up."

"It's Not Blind Faith! Buffy is The Slayer! She Can Handle Working On A Team With Some Want-a-be Slayer Like Kendra!" Willow shouted.

"Okay!" Cordilea shouted back, rising to her feet and letting of a wave of killer intent at Willow that visions of her gruesome death filled her mind's eye, "First off, never under any circumstance yell at me like that unless you want a fight," Cordilea said in a voice as cold as steel. "Second, Kendra is just as much a Slayer as Buffy is, deal with it. And third, being The Slayer does not make you infallible, it just gives us two strong willed, super strong, 16 year old girls who have opposing ideas about how to do things, and have no idea how to give and take in a team, mark my words, this will not end well."

It didn't, as some time later Kendra showed up with a story of Willy telling Buffy he could take her to Angel, and about the fight over orders that had ensued, which had ended with Buffy walking into a trap that a ten year old could see it, though Kendra apparently had no idea what he sister slayer was walking into ether, another failing of the Watchers. So they moved out, Xander and Cordilea loaded for a heavy mission. For Xander this meant double the weapons kit and a Tantō, a weapon that ranged from a six-inch knife he now wore horizontally on the back of his belt to foot-long short swords like White Light Chakra Saber, a blade wielded by Kakashi's father, Hatake Sakumo, for Cordy this meant everything she needed to kill the bug man. Well armed they headed out to save the love sick young slayer.

Abandoned Catholic Church- 20 minutes later

Buffy was in a bad mood, she had just walked headlong into a trap, had this been a few weeks ago she might have blamed someone other than herself, but in the last few weeks had begun to tech her to grow up and take some responsibility for her actions. Now because of her dumb move she was watching Angel have the life, if you could call it that, sucked out of him to heal Drusilla, while being held by a Vampire and Police Lady as Spike cracked corny jokes. What really filled her with hopelessness was the minions though, one thing you could say about Spike, he was a fast learner, before Halloween Spike would have only gone with two minions plus the two bounty hunters he had with him, now though he had half a dozen of his own goons with him. "Angel," she whispered in desperation.

"Yeah," Spike said looking forlorn, "It bugs me, too, seeing him like that." Then he perked up and gave her a sarcastic sneer. "Another five minutes, though, and Angel will be dead, so ... I forebear. Don't feel too bad for Angel, though, he's got something you don't have."

"What's that?" She spat at him.

The smile turned menacing as he said, "Five minutes. Patrice!" With that the gun toting assassin drew a revolver, just then Kendra came back flipping into the room, disarming the assassin and allowing Buffy the chance to get away as Giles killed a Vampire with a well placed crossbow bolt, the other five tried to swarm him but Xander appeared in their way and stopped all but one of them from reaching him, meanwhile Norman found a knife in his chest following its path back to the thrower the swarm saw Cordy, "Hi Doofis, feel like a rematch." Norman smiled and charged as Cordy retreated though the doorway closing it as she went, on the other side she pulled the string that was connected to her trap, a can of wallpaper glue hanging from the ceiling tipped over, poring its contains on the floor, just as the swarm came though, trapping them, "Welcome to Cordilea's House of Death." She said with a shark's grin.

Inside the Sanctuary, the battle raged, Buffy and Kendra were tag teaming Spike and Patrice, the gun wielding, knife toting assassin. Some feet away from this battle Giles and Willow were fighting the vampire that had made it past Xander, or rather Giles was fighting him, Willow may or may not have been helping, she had jumped on the vampire's back trying to use her size and weight to slow him down but she really wasn't slowing the demon down all that much, in the middle of the pews Xander was looked in battle with his four opponents, it was harder than he thought it would be, Spike had apparently upped the quality of his tugs in response to the two ninja's attacks, one of these goons had martial arts training, another may have been a linebacker in life, and the last two knew how to at least handle themselves in a fight, so Xander right now found himself dodging from pew to pew, blocking blows, until the Vamp-linebacker made an NFL worthy tackle that sent him through a pew, he barely had time to push chakra to the point of contact to protect himself from the force of the impact, though it turned out to be a blessing as while they were falling Xander was able to grab a large piece of the pew as it splintered and shove it through the back of the Vampire's heart. As he dusted Xander was already moving, rolling across the floor he picked up another good sized piece and chucked them both at the two Vampire brawlers's, catching both in the heart before trying the same thing with the vamp-martial artist, but the guy caught the thing in mid air like something out of a movie. "You didn't really think that would work on me, did you?" The vampire said with a sneer.

"Figured it was worth a try," Xander returned before the two combatants collided, the ninja tried a punch which the vampire blocked, then the vampire punched and Xander blocked and so it went, back and forth they went, mixing it with jabs and kicks, but Xander just could not get the upper hand, the problem was that even though Kakashi had years of experience in Taijutsu Xander had only actually been training for a few weeks. The vampire on the other hand had been either a high degree brown belt or a low black belt, with years of training and the endurance that came with it, and then his speed as strength had been enhanced when he had been turned, so now he had the upper hand in this and Xander needed was a move with the speed, accuracy, and power to end this now, 'Dam,' he thought, 'I was hoping not to do this, I don't really have the chakra to spare yet,' his hand went to his forehead and revealed his Sharingan, with a sudden burst of speed he landed a kick which the vampire blocked, he was meant to, for Xaneder used the power to volt himself away from his opponent, he then preformed a set of hand seals, Monkey, Dragon, Rat, Bird, Ox, Snake, Dog, Tiger, Monkey, then he held his right hand out and collected his Chakra there, he then began to turn it into an electrical current. A sound as if a thousand birds were chirping filled the air, near the alter were Dru and Angel were hanging, Spike and Buffy pause in their fight to see what was going on, nearby Willow and Giles had just killed there vampire and stopped to see what the noise was all about, and lastly the noise distracted Patrice the Assassin for a second, allowing Kendra, angered over the loss of her one and only shirt, a chance to go in for the kill, before she too turned to find out what the sound was. What they all saw a truly awe inspiring sight; Xander Harris was standing in the middle of the Sanctuary with his right forearm sheathed in lightning, only Cordy who had just come back in to the room knew what it was, Chidori, Kakashi's A-ranked jutsu, the move was a precise and powerful jab built on Nature Manipulation, Xander like Kakashi was a lightning nature, and by molding lightning chakra into his hand and arm he turned it into a sword that could not be broken, as they watched Xander pulled his hand to his side and charged, or rather Cordilea watched it the others just saw a blur of motion as Xander closed, jumping the last few feet before landing a strike right through the heart, the vampire slouched over Xander for a moment before despairing in a puff of ash, everyone save the other shinobi in the room were to stunned to notes that Xander was having trouble staying on his feet after that attack. With that Spike decided now was the best time to leave, so he took one of the torches he had put up around the walls chucked it at an nice flammable curtain next to Willow an Giles then grabbed Drusilla and made a break for it, Buffy grabbed the incense globe Spike had used during the ceremony and spun it around a few times before sending it flying into Spike's back knocking him into the pipe organ, which promptly fell on him.

Buffy bruised from her fight with Spike crawled over to her beloved Angel, lovingly she leaned in over him, cradling his head in her hands, for a moment they stared into each other's eyes, "I hate to break up this touching seen," Xander said as he and Kendra came towards them, "Oh wait no I don't, we need to go, now!"

"Here," Kendra added, "let's get him out." Together the two slayers carried Angel out of the church as it started to really burn.

Sunnydale High Library 4:00 PM Next Day

Buffy Summers sat in her chair trying to sulk, here she was a Slayer with over two years expense and the same number of Master Vampires under her belt and she was being chewed out like she was some kind of rookie, the only problem was that she knew that the her tormentor were right, she looked up as Xander started up again, "You need to learn to think Buffy, you walked head long into a trap so obvious a blind two year old could have seen it, you are dame lucky no one was killed, because that was the most likely scenario from the moment you chose to fallow Willy." Buffy palled at the thought of Angel or Willow died because of her. "I know it's hard to think when you're scared or worried but that's when you need to think the most, and if you can't think on your own then call on Cordilea or me, we'll get you through, you're not alone anymore." With that he left and Buffy sat stunned, for the first time in her life she realized just how truly alone she had felt she was and the gift that Cordilea and Xander had given her, by embracing what had happened to them they had given her someone to lean on, someone to help her without her having watch over in a fight, for the first time since she was called she was no longer alone with the weight of the world on her shoulders, she had someone to share the burden. For a moment she felt something alien to her, hope.

Abandoned Catholic Church- same time

The Fire had long since been put out but the burn marks could still be seen, surprisingly the organ had escaped most of the flame right now a darkly clothed figure was rummaging through the wreckage, finding something the figure pulled one handed and out came a battered and beaten Spike, Dru smiled, "Don't worry love I'll make you strong. Like Me."

_A.N.-_ Finally after two computers crashes, one of which lost all of my work, months of school work eating up my time, and weeks of writer's block I have done it, thank you to all of you who have ether made this a Favorite Story or signed up for a update alert. So tell me what you think


	8. Fears

AN: Okay first off I need to say that Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Naruto do not belong to me; I just like the idea of mixing them together. Also thank you for the reviews, I will be going over my first 6 chapters when my life is not as hectic and fix everything I can.

As for the power level problem that several of you talked about, I suppose I need to give more info, Cordelia and Xander are in a rather unique position as even though they have chakra strength levels that are in normal gennin levels, some were near Kiba and Chouji as opposed to Naruto and Sasuke, they already a fully developed chakra networks and Jonin level knowledge left over from Halloween, so what they're doing isn't so much training as they are rehabilitating, they are rebuilding their way back to what they were when they were possessed and are there for advancing rapidly.

"_A thought, even a possibility, can shatter and transform us"_

Friedrich Nietzsche

She was in a hidden lab, around her she could see the living nightmares that were the experiments in their containment tanks; these valiant sacrifices would help save Kohona; wouldn't they? Of course they would, He had said so, and besides Hokage-sama knew all about this, He had told her that and a great ninja like him would never lie to her about something like that, it was a honor to help him with this, if she helped him he would make her a great ninja, if she didn't then he would, No! She couldn't think about that it would never happen He would never do that to her she and she need to get back to work before He got back. "Anko-chan," a cold voice called from the dark hall, "Anko-chan, Anko-chan." Suddenly the scene changed, she was in a cell the door closed and she could hear a padlock click in place before her world exploded in pain.

Cordilea woke with a start, covered in sweet, and her curse mark burning. This wasn't good, Anko had stopped having these dreams when she had worked out her past; of course she had other reasons to be having these dreams. She wasn't going to get any more sleep tonight so she got up, dressed, armed herself, and climbed out the window before heading out into the night.

The night had been a bust, she hadn't been able to find anything good to kill, demons seemed to start thinning out about 3 in the morning and they had started to get more carful as now they had to look out for Cordilea and Xander as well as Buffy. So Cordilea ended up waiting in the library for Giles to come to work, she needed to talk to someone about this, and Giles the closest thing she had to the Third Hokage. "Cordilea?" Giles said as he came in, "what are you doing here?"

"I need to talk to you Giles, about my history, my curse mark."

"What's wrong Cordilea?" The Englishman had been expecting this; the girl had clearly been struggling with something for weeks, though the girl had become so closed off now he had been unable to find out what was bothering her.

"This mark is a thing of evil like I said before, but it's more than that, it's, it's, oh I don't know where to begin.

" OK… Okay here we go. The story of Anko's mark starts when she caught the attention of Orochimaru, she was a genin fresh out of the academy at the time, and he was still a respected member of the community, one of the Sanin, it was a great honor to be one of their apprentices. He taught her much, her snakes, her Jutsu, she learned most of it from him, and she worshipped him for it, then he betrayed her. See after the Third Great Ninja War the Third Hokage was preparing to step down, it was known that he had hoped Orochimaru; who had been his star pupil among the Sanin; would succeed him, but over the years the Third had seen something dark in his student, so he chose Kakashi's teacher, Namikaze Minato instead, after Orochimaru was passed up people started disappearing, the Third, the Military Police, and ANBU tracked it to a secret lab Orochimaru had set up, but the monster got away, after that he picked up Anko, telling her that they were on a long term mission."

Cordilea paused, shaking. Giles was struck by how young and scared she looked right now, part of him wondered if the girl he was seeing was something Anko had left behind or if this had been under the surface the whole time, Buffy had told him about the two's little heart to heart last year during the whole "invisible girl" debacle, could Anko's and Cordilea's ability to hid their fear and doubt behind masks be one of the things that they shared?

"It's okay Cordilea." He said softly, trying to send some comfort to her with his words. He seemed to get through to her as she calmed down.

"The next few months are blurry, it took Anko years to piece what little I can tell you, he took her to a secret lab he had setup in the Land of Sea. There he no longer needed to wear his mask of the good Sanin, it was a dark time for Anko, she saw his evil, his so called 'experiments' which were really more of a fix for his sick pleasers than anything else, she was made to help with them, becoming more confused and scared for her life as time went on. She wanted to believe that he was the hero she thought he was but deep in her heart she knew better.

"Then he invented this dam mark, he put it on her and nine others, only she survived, and you know what that psycho said when she asked him why he had done that to her, his loyal student, who had followed his orders without question and always respected him, he said that she wasn't a power thirsty monster and she didn't hate so she was worthless, but the fact that she survived meant she wasn't completely useless so she could come along if she wanted, needless to say she wanted nothing to do with the monster after that. So he erased her memory of the last few months and ditched her, if the Anbu sent to track him down hadn't found her, she would have died.

"There's a reason for you to know all this Giles, you need to know just how sick Orochimaru is; so you'll understand what this mark is, what it does, and why I'm worried. The way this mark was made, the freak bit Anko on the neck like some kind of snake necked vampire and injected his chakra into her, when it activates his chakra painfully draws dangerous levels of chakra form the hosts body and forces it to the for front, in short it makes you ridiculously strong in the short term but will kill you in the long term if you over use it. What's more it is usually activated by dark emotions, and then it increases these feelings as I told you before, but it is connected to Orochimaru in an even more fundamental way then most fūinjutsu so it can also be activated by Orochimaru's presence, which is why I'm here, Giles this thing is hurting at random times, just like it use to when Anko was near Orochimaru or somewhere he had been." She passed again, shaking with fear this time.

"I looked into it Giles, Xander and I were the only people who bought Shinobi costumes. So he can't be here, he can't be! But what if I brought him here with the mark, the way I brought the snakes, if he hurts someone it will be my fault!" Giles felt a pull on his heart, he knew all about blame, he had been blaming himself for things that were both really his fault and not for longer than Cordilea had been alive, and he would be dammed if she would start doing this to herself, especially for something that may not happen.

"Cordilea," the English man placing a comforting hand on her shoulder, "We don't know if he really is here, there could be another reason for your mark hurting, and I promise you if there is then I will find it. But even if there's not and he is here it wouldn't be your fault, it would be Ethan's, and mine for not protecting you from my past."

The girl smiled weakly, "Tell you what Giles, if I promise not to freak out about this and let you look into it, then you promise not to blame yourself for what Ethan dose, you're a good man Giles, the best I've ever met and I'll tell you now, nothing he does is your fault, Ok?"

Giles smiled at her, "Yes Cordilea, It's a deal." What they didn't notice was the door swinging back and forth slightly as if someone had been listening from the door and left in a hurry.

Willow Rosenberg hurried away from the library, this was bad; she knew that letting Cordilea and Xander keep their powers would turn out to be a problem and she was right, Cordilea was being used to summon some supper evil monster, well she would fix that, first thing after school.

The rest of the day went peacefully. The only highlight of the day Harmony trying to get back at Cordilea, Carrie style, she had set a bucked of blood to fall when she pulled a string, the fact that dumping blood on someone hadn't turned out so good in that movie hadn't registered in her mind. What happened next no one could say, one moment she was pulling the string to dump the blood on Cordy the next Harmony was the one under the bucket and her target was calmly walking away from the spot she herself had been.

The Ninja and Slayer had a meeting after school; the Techno-Pagan and the Watcher were there as well briefing the three teens on their areas of patrol for the night. Willow had stayed in the computer lab, saying that she wanted to do some net searching for a idea she had about using suspicious deaths to track demon movement and set up a early warning system for when the next big bad hit town, Giles and Jenny had readily agreed, it saddened them that the idea of an early warning had only been half the reason they had agreed to let her stay away from the meeting; the adults were far from oblivious to the friction forming, if Willow was not able to work with a ninja Cordilea and Xander without being rude to them then it would be best if she was not around until she could.

Cordilea was explaining about her curse mark and the possibility that Orochimaru was lose on this world. Buffy was up beet, "Well if he is here well take care of him."

Xander laughed, a short humorless bark, "Buffy if he's here we'll be lucky to live, forget about beating him." He fixed her with a one eyed stare, showing her that he wasn't kidding, "The Sanin were three of the greatest Shinobi the Leaf ever produced, and Orochimaru would be at full power, we are two Genin and a Slayer, against him we're nothing. No the best thing for the team would be if there was some other reason for Cody's mark hurting, I don't know-" he stopped and straitened like he'd been shocked, Buffy, Jenny, and Giles were startled when blood start to seep from under his eye patch/forehead protector, it got worse when Cordilea let out a blood curdling scream, she was clutching at her mark, mark symbols appearing to expanded out along her skin, as they watched the young woman collapsed convulsing. Xander mean while had been brought to his knees by the pain, blood streaming down his face.

Ms. Calendar was the first to get over her shock, acting on instinct she bent over Cordy and preformed a miner diagnostic spell. The source of the girl's pain became apparent as she ran her now glowing hands over her, "Rupert someone's doing a rather dangerous combination of spells on them, it's as if everything that was Anko is being ripped away from her, if this is happening to both of them then we don't have much time, their fighting it but if we don't do something now they will die."

"Good Lord!" exclaimed the Englishman as he knelt next to Xander. As Buffy looked at her friends a horrible thought came to her, there was one person who hated the fact that Cordilea Chase and Alexander Harris were ninja, who knew how they had become ninja, and had recently started studying magic, "Willow!" She shouted, "She's doing this."

"Buffy," Ms. Calendar said looking startled at the thought of her prized student in both science and magic would do this, "What are you talking about?"

"Willow never believed that they weren't possessed she just told us we wanted to hear," the Slayer said turning for the door, "I knew she was looking for a spell to do the trick, I just never thought she would try an exorcism on her own." With that she started to run for the computer lab, she just hoped she wouldn't be too late.

An: I know I suck for leaving it here but hay now you have something to look forward to. I know that my 2 page essay on why Orochimaru is evil and what he did to Anko is going to get some annoyed reviews, but I did it for two reasons, one is to convey just what Cordy is scared of and it also high lights the new dynamic her relationship with Giles and two to give the idea that Willow missed some of the conversation and jumped to the worst conclusion

And real quick I am working on a Story involving the British Army and if any of My British readers can point me to a site that show the entry requirements for the SRR (Special Reconnaissance Regimen t) or the old Dent I'd be grateful


	9. Punishment

_Trust is like a vase... once it's broken; though you can fix it the vase will never be same again._

-Unknown

_I'm not upset that you lied to me; I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you_

-Friedrich Nietzsche

Buffy burst through the door of the computer lab. She spotted Willow kneeling in the middle of an incantation circle, candles around the circumference, the novice witch's eyes were closed and she was chanting. Not wasting a moment Buffy came in for a running tackle of her friend, spilling candles to the floor as she forcibly broke the ritual that was being used to hurt her friends.

"AAAHHH!" Willow Screamed as she crashed to the floor. "Buffy what are you doing?"

"Stopping you from killing Cordelia and Xander," The Slayer snapped back.

"I'm not killing them I'm saving them, I heard Cordelia talking to Giles this morning, She's being used to summon something called an Orochy Makia demon. So see I was right they are possessed!" Buffy stared at Willow her mouth agape, Willow started to feel hope, now Buffy would see why they had to do this, she would help her rebuild the circle and finish the spell, now…

"You Idiot!" Buffy said in revulsion, the peaces falling into place in her mind, Willow must have walked in on Cordy and Giles in the middle of talking about Orochimaru and had warped it to fit what she already believed. Her mind flashed back the incident last week when her mother had been dating Ted, the man who turned out to be an evil serial killing android, if this was the way she had sounded when she had tried to tell people about something being wrong with him then she could see why no one had believed her. "I already know about what you're talking about, though you apparently don't. Cordelia's curse mark has been hurting her, she was scared that this meant that Anko's old teacher, **Orochimaru**, could have been brought into existence by the spell on Halloween, and since he was a psycho she talked it over with Giles and he promised to look into it, your stunt almost killed the only two people who have even the slightest chance of stopping him if he is even here!"

"They weren't in any danger, I made sure of it, I combined the demon banishing spell with a memory removal spell **and** a surgery spell to remove the demon infected parts of their bodies replacing them with healthy ones. So as you can see I thought of everything." Willow said smugly, really this was getting stupid just who did Buffy think she was talking to; she wasn't an airhead like Harmony? She was the kind of person you could trust to think of the little things and come up the right plain.

"You didn't think of everything." A voice called from the door, the two teens turned to see Ms. Calendar a pale and sweaty Cordelia leaning against her, Giles was holding up a bloody Xander behind them, Willow gasped as she looked at the victims of her spell. Ms. Calendar continued, "You failed to think of what side effects of mixing these spells would be, and what would happen if they were not in fact possessed, the results of mixing three high-powered spells, one of which wasn't doing anything caused them to merge into one spell that ripped at their mind, body, and soul, if Buffy hadn't stopped you or Cordelia and Xander been any weaker they would have been driven mad before being torn limb from limb."

Willow seemed to shrink inward as her mentor told her just how badly she had miscalculated. But Jenny was not finished, "When I agreed to teach you the basics of magic it was with the understanding that you would exercise restraint and wisdom to use these powers, but you seem to think that magic is a free ticket to change the world as you see fit, it's not you stupid little girl! Even if you ignore the attempted murder you just blundered into, what you were trying to do is the magical equivalent of rape! But you are young and foolish, so I'm not going to ask Giles to use his magical contacts and have a coven bind your magic so you never harm another person again, but until I think you have learned your lesson, you will not be learning magic from me, you will not be allowed to borrow my books or supplies, and if I find you so much as levitating a safety pin, I will come down on you so hard you will think the world is ending!"

"I'm Sor-ah," Willow began but she was unable to continue as a long senbon needle hit her in the neck causing her to collapse, the shot was perfect, designed to immobilize the target from the neck down without causing any permanent damage.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" Cordelia said, her hand still extended, "Having your body turn on you, not having control of what has been yours since before you were born, this is what you did to us Willow, I for one don't want to hear your apologies, you can't just say sorry and pretend this never happened you can't hide from this. You know I once told Harmony that you were worth ten of her, well I was wrong, Harmony may be a self absorbed airhead but you are a self absorbed monster. What in the world gives you the right to change my body and soul to fit your idea of what's right?" She leaned down and twisted the needle out of the young woman's neck.

"I thought you were possessed, you've changed so much; I was just trying to put things back the way things are supposed to be." The young witch said weakly.

"And what gives you the right to decide the way things are supposed to be?" Said Xander in a weak voice, "You were told by experts that we weren't possessed but still you had to do it, it was more important that you where right than what would happen to Cordy or me, that's not what friends do so we are no longer friends and if you ever do something like this again I'll kill you, so help me God." With that he shook off Giles then turned and walked out of the room.

Cordelia looked over, "Willow, if you ever come near me again for anything none slayer related, well my snakes need meat." With that the Kunoichi vanished in a cloud of smoke.

Buffy looked over at her friend anguish on her face, the Slayer's adrenaline was starting to bleed off and it was replaced by a jumble of conflicting emotions and thoughts, "I don't know what to say Willow, you may have had good intentions, but what you did…, the way they looked…, I thought they were going to…, I need some time to think about all this." With that she too left.

The red haired teen turned towards the adults, Giles had been silent for all this, now he spoke in a quiet disappointed tone of voice that cut Willow to the bone, "Willow I don't know what to say, I know the call of the Dark Arts is strong," Willow started to interrupt, but Giles pressed on. "It was the Dark Arts Willow, to change one's mind to fit the way you think it should be is a crime of the most fowl kind. But even if you had only tried to remove a demon from them I would still be disappointed that you clearly have no faith in Jenny or I; Buffy, Cordelia, Xander, and you are very important to us, do you really think we would have allowed Cordelia and Xander to keep their abilities if we were not shore that they were in no danger?"

Willows said nothing but the fact that she could not look him in the eye was all the answer needed. In truth the thought hadn't even occurred to her. Slowly Willow left the room for the long trip home.

AN: so here it is, the fall out of Willow's choice begins; this was a hard chapter for me to write as Willow my least favorite character on Buffy. She never gets the blame for anything she does, the Fluke, Xander got all the blame and she got away scot free, she was pushing Faith away from the group from day one, even when Faith was just trying be friends, and finally her "Addiction to Black Magic" was is really nothing of the sort. She manipulates each member of the group at one time or another to get her way long before she turned to magic; I believe that Willow was addicted to the power to change the world the way she saw fit. So my rants all seemed to start from there, so I had to step back and make it more about this one time than her personality did I do that?

AN 2 Preview: I have gotten into a bit of a Religious / Philosophical kick lately, which is starting to spill over into my writing as a result my next Buffy probably will be a crossover with Star Wars: Old Republic. It will deal with Revan and the Exile and members of their team's, and I'm going to make it a Trio empowerment story, I have one idea ready and am open to ideas for the other two, talk to me.


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